CHENNAI: After the death of a seven-year-old boy in a corporation-run swimming pool earlier this month, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is set to terminate the contract of the firm that had undertaken maintenance of the pool along with the maintenance of several parks in the city.
At the council meeting on Friday, officials said the contractor had moved court and it was only on Thursday that the court had ruled in the civic body’s favour, allowing it to initiate action against the contractor ‘Mullai Malar Enterprises’. Mayor R Priya informed the council on Friday that apart from the tender being cancelled, future tenders of parks maintenance are to be floated in unit-wise packages that would prevent a single firm from securing the contract of a large number of parks at the same time.
The issue of a single firm holding contracts for several parks was raised by councillors ‘Palavakkam’ D Viswanathan and K Kannan of wards 181 and 138 respectively. “The parks coming under a single assistant executive engineer will be grouped into a single unit and there will be a cap in the tender value that a single firm can take up,” Mayor Priya said.
Corporation Commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi said while clearing maintenance bills, around 75% will be fixed pay while the remaining will be based on the marks awarded to a park, under various parameters like cleanliness. The marks will be fixed based on regular inspections by corporation officials. The same ‘mark system’ is to be also extended to the toilets.