Madurai MP Su. Venkatesan on Wednesday expressed anguish over Madurai Corporation’s failure to constitute the Smart City Advisory Forum (SCAF) comprising elected representatives as per Smart City Mission Guidelines.
“The local body has taken up several important works to make one of the oldest cities a smart city with additional facilities at a massive cost of ₹2,000 crore. But a few officials have been taking the calls on project design to execution without following the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs guidelines on the mission,” Mr. Venkatesan told The Hindu.
He wondered why the local body chose not to involve the elected representatives such as the MP and MLAs in the projects.
“In the absence of the corporation council, as the urban local body election could not be conducted, the presence of SCAF and convening of periodical meetings with elected representatives would have helped in better planning and execution of the projects,” he pointed out.
Under the guidelines, Madurai Collector would have been the Chairman of SCAF with the MP as Co-Chairman. The six MLAs, whose constituencies were in the city limits, and the Corporation Commissioner and City Engineer would have been members.
When the DISHA meeting, chaired by Madurai MP, was convened on September 7 to discuss the smart city projects under implementation, Corporation officials feigned ignorance about the need to constitute SCAF. “Both the Commissioner and City Engineer said they were unaware of this aspect,” Mr. Venkatesan said.
However, subsequently, he accessed through MoHUA the reminder letter sent to State governments and Chief Executive Officer of all smart cities to convene SCAF meetings.
Reminder letter
The letter, dated December 26, 2019, sought compliance report on the SCAF meeting. The reminder was a direct fallout of a number of MPs of the Parliamentary Standing Committee for MoHUA complaining that the SCAF meetings were not conducted by many smart cities.
“The Ministry had asked the smart cities to convene at least one meeting by January 15. But officials of Madurai Corporation have conveniently given it a miss,” he said.
In his response, Corporation Commissioner S. Visakan said the city held time-to-time consultation with stakeholders on plan and progress of projects.
“We will shortly convene the SCAF meeting that could not be conducted due to COVID-19 pandemic,” the civic body chief added.
Complaining about lack of transparency in the detailed project report on implementation of proposals, Mr. Venkatesan said though 45% of local residents gave priority to improvement in city traffic and transport facilities, the authorities chose different projects.
“The decision to increase the number of shops and space for vehicle parking at Periyar bus stand by three-fold without enhancing traffic facilities is only going to make the city more congested. There is nothing smart about it,” he added.