Third biggest in terms of area, the 51.15 sq.km.-South Zone has a mix of old city and added areas in its 20 zones. Starting with Telungupalayam and Selvapuram in the west, the zone includes a few commercial areas in Ukkadam and encompasses the areas that were once under the Kurichi and Kuniamuthur municipalities.
It has three important water bodies, two of which – the Ukkadam Periyakulam and Kurichi tank – that saw improvement in the last five years under the Smart Cities Mission. The other water body is Senkulam.
Though widely believed to have been a major beneficiary of the schemes the Corporation had implemented and works it took up in the last 10 years – from 2011-16 when an elected Council was in place to 2016-21 when a special officer had the Council’s powers, the zone was still in need of good roads, improved water supply, storm water drain and underground sewer service, said a few former councillors on anonymity.
Issues with roads, street lights or water supply should take a backseat before the problem the Vellalore dump yard caused, said Marumalarchi Makkal Iyakkam Coordinator and civic activist V. Eswaran.
The dump yard was the place where the Corporation took the garbage from the 100 wards. Ever since it began implementing the solid waste management programme with funds from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the residents in Wards 100, 99, 98, 85 and a few others had been having problems – air and water pollution among others.
That the Corporation had failed to properly comply with the guidelines given by the National Green Tribunal or implement the bio-mining project to clear old, accumulated waste had only worsened the problem, he pointed out.
The Corporation’s plan to decentralise waste processing through the 69 micro compost centres had not taken off as promised – meaning, the quantity of waste pouring into Vellalore had not reduced. The Corporation’s or the new council’s priority should be to address the waste management issue, he stressed.
Regarding Vellalore, Mr. Eswaran said the integrated bus stand construction that the Coimbatore Corporation started a few years ago had stopped. There was no sign of resumption of construction, he said.
If the Corporation were to complete the construction of the bus stand and throw it open for buses, Ukkadam, Athupalam, Podanur and other areas would face severe traffic congestion as the Corporation was yet to initiate steps to have the roads widened, he added.
Drinking water distribution remained a cause for concern as there were many localities to which the Corporation was able to supply water only once in 10 days. In the absence of storm water drain in several places, inundation during monsoon was a cause for concern, said residents across the zone.
M. Abdul Hakkim of Jamat-e-Islami Hind said the way the Corporation had divided wards in the last delimitation exercise, based on which it held the current ward elections, itself was skewed and went against the residents in Ukkadam.
Ward 86, for instance, had 25,000 voters, which was thrice the number of a few wards. Why the Corporation did not trifurcate the ward, he asked and went onto say that the civic body’s discrimination against the area also extended to not providing library, school or park.
With the Corporation relocating to Ukkadam the people who had encroached upon water bodies, it was imperative that the area got the necessary infrastructure.
The people’s needs in Ukkadam, Saramedu and other areas were a girls higher secondary school, library, park among other things, he added.
