The young and new Commissioner of Madurai Corporation L. Madhubalan, a 2018 batch of the IAS, has a plenty of challenges waiting for his swift action.
As the civic body chief, he has the responsibility of implementing the long-pending Smart City Project works, which mired into a lot of controversies. The other major projects topping the list is the Mullaperiyar drinking water project, the underground drainage project under way in many stages in the city, drinking water pipeline works and so on.
The Corporation has also issues with the conservancy workers recruitment/payment of salaries et al., Shortage of staff in non-technical sections is so high that the employees have been complaining of severe stress. The ‘plight’ of the assistant engineers (AE) are so high and complex that the AEs are entrusted with more than two-three wards. The Corporation has the highest AEE (assistant executive engineer) vacancies.
The new Commissioner has started inspecting ongoing projects right from the first day of assuming office, which is a welcome move. He has promised to ensure that basic needs would be fulfilled and has conveyed the message that he is available to solve issues.
With the northeast monsoon setting in, road-laying works are unfinished in many wards. The DMK councillors and their allies have been openly accusing the officials of ‘nonchalant’ attitude at council meetings. It is yet another major issue for the civic body chief to take note of.
While the outgoing Commissioner K.J. Praveen Kumar seemed to be promising and had earnestly started implementing works one after the other with transparency, the “sudden” shift had caused embarrassment to the official cannot be denied. He had taken charge only in June and it was totally unexpected to shift him out, said political opponents.
The AIADMK councillor and leader in the council Solai Raja told The Hindu on Saturday that for any official, it would take at least three months to understand the profile of the city.
“When Mr. Praveen Kumar had become familiar with the issues in the zones/wards, his transfer was not at all right. It only showed the government in poor light,” he charged.
He said that a city like Madurai, which is described as the second largest city next to Chennai, should have an official serving at least for three years.
“I hope that Mr. Madhubalan, who has already created a record of being the youngest officer to take the responsibility as a civic body chief at 28, would stay for a longer time and create another record...” he hoped.
Though the DMK is sitting pretty in the Corporation council with an absolute majority, the intra-party issues have exposed non-cooperation to Mayor Indrani Ponvasanth by some councillors. However, in the recent times, the Mayor has through her actions conveyed the message that she cannot be taken for granted any more is a different story.
