Two residents-cum-social activists, who confronted officials on the ongoing stormwater drain work in Chitlapakkam, were on Saturday arrested on charges of “rioting” and “criminally intimidating officials.”
The residents, R. Balachander and S. Kumar, alleged that there were discrepancies in the award of tender for the ₹5 crore ‘cut and cover’ stormwater drain project and accused the contractor of taking up the work without getting the work order.
When they confronted officials and tried to videograph the exchange of words, an engineer allegedly snatched the mobile phone from a resident. Later the residents and officials filed separate complaints with the Chitlapakkam Police levelling accusations against each other.
However around 7 p.m. a few residents were called back to the police station where two of them were arrested.
Arappor Iyakkam, a voluntary movement for clean governance, has condemned the arrest of the residents R. Balachander and S. Kumar and the registration of an FIR against four residents / activists.
Mr. Jayaram questioned the police action of arresting the residents for democratically questioning the officials about the work order. He alleged that the work has been going on for more than a fortnight but the tender for work was floated only on October 15 and was closed on October 17. He charged that this goes to show the clear fixing of various civic works.
Official denies
When contacted, an official from the Directorate of Town Panchayat said that the work orders are being issued to contractors on digging a channel for 1650 metres, for which the Chitlapakkam Town Panchayat had obtained a special permission from the District Administration. “This is a supplementary work to connect the channel with the proposed PWD channel and the other cut and cover channels which are under way,” he said.
Two other ‘cut and cover’ construction works were being carried out at a cost of ₹20 lakh and ₹24 lakh for which tenders were processed in August.
Meanwhile the Public Works Department floated tenders for ₹12 crore and the tender process have been completed during second week of October. “These three works are separate and the copies of work orders can be obtained from the Town Panchayat office after due submission of letter to the official in-charge,” he said.
The Kancheepuram Collector P Ponniah visited Suryanarayanan Street in Chitlapakkam on Saturday to oversee the ongoing civic works to prevent flooding.