CHENNAI: Alleging monopoly and negligence in maintenance of public parks in the city, corporation councillors have demanded to monitor the performance of contractors in charge of maintenance and barring those performing poorly from participating in future tenders. The matter was raised at the council meeting held at Ripon Building on Thursday.
As many of the existing maintenance contracts are set to expire by the end of this month, corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi told the council that a committee has been formed to revise tender conditions to prevent instances of single contractor holding contracts of 80-90 parks. The next batch of tenders will be floated in a month
The commissioner later told TNIE that a set of revised clauses for park maintenance have been submitted and is under scrutiny. There are 738 parks in the city corporation, of which 571 parks are maintained by contractors and the remaining by the corporation.
K Dhanasekaran of ward 137, who is also the accounts committee chairman said, “During my inspection, I found that not only are these parks poorly maintained but in many cases, a single contractor holds the contract for a large cluster of parks.” He also added that zonal officials should inspect the maintenance of parks on a regular basis.
SV Ravichandran, zonal chairman, Perungudi zone, said that the contractors failed to carry out even basic daily upkeep like buying brooms and lubricating the park gates. Dhanasekaran added that the then AIADMK government in 2019 had only utilised Rs 11.85 crore out of Rs 132.7 crore that was allotted to the city corporation under the Nirbhaya Fund.
Responding to complaints of community halls still housing bedding, cots and other items used for quarantines during the pandemic, Mayor R Priya said that the items will be auctioned off. “The corporation will take whatever it may need for schools or hospitals and the rest will be auctioned,” the mayor said. The councillors, who completed a year of taking oath on Wednesday, also sought limited tender for carrying out emergency works rather than going for open tenders in all cases.
Committee formed
Corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi told the council that a committee has been formed to revise tender conditions to prevent instances of single contractor holding contracts of 80-90 parks