Now, a social media drive to scrutinise corporation’s last budget

COIMBATORE: While the city corporation is gearing up to propose the budget for 2018-2019, a group of residents have started a first-of-its-kind social media campaign to find out if the civic body has fulfilled its earlier promises. They plan to visit various locations in the city to find out if the projects announced in the last budget have been implemented.
It was started to sensitise the public, the mastermind behind the drive Saravanan Chandrashekar of Canopy Nature Academy told TOI. “We always breakdown and discuss about the Union budget and the state budget. But, no one takes the corporation budget seriously even though it is the most important one for denizens. It is our duty to find out if the projects proposed in our areas materialise,” he said.

The group, comprising nearly 50 residents from various walks of life, will meet again to discuss the projects mentioned in the last budget. “We will invite representatives from schools, residential communities and corporates for the discussion,” Saravanan said.

RTI activist SP Thiyagarajan said that many parks proposed in the last budget have not been set up yet.

“Nearly Rs 9 crore was allotted under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) scheme of the Central government for development of 11 parks in the city. But, all parks have been handed over to the corporates. If corporates are maintaining the parks, then what happened to the Central government fund? Was it utilised or given back? We should ask all these questions to our officials,” he said.

Others in the group said that they are in dark about the status of various civic works. For example, more than Rs 2 crore was allotted for the development of city lakes. In Ukkadam alone, the corporation spent Rs 50 lakh. “We have no idea what kind of fence was put up. Why so much money was spent,” said Mohammed Saleem, a resident.

Some of the projects mentioned in the budget such as rejuvenation of Sanganoor groove were not even taken up, the residents said.

They plan to seek the expertise of volunteers from various fields to check the works. “We hope this discussion will continue and trade associations will also join us,” Saravanan added.