CHENNAI: The Tambaram corporation has asked residents and individuals to come forward to take up maintenance of the 56 parks in the civic body’s limits. Most of these are currently affected by poor watering, inadequate lighting and lack of amenities such as toilets.
Corporation commissioner M Elangovan said residents handed over these parks will ensure proper opening and closing.
“We will provide them all the manpower to maintain the parks in terms of infrastructure issues. They can take up monitoring work and also pruning of plants. The corporation will take care of cleaning activities too,” he said.
The commissioner said the civic body was also looking at tapping into corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to develop the parks and look for revenue options through advertisements. “About four parks have already been taken up for maintenance by residents,” he said.
Residents and activists said there was no reason why the corporation could not maintaining parks as it was getting additional property tax now.
David Manohar, a civic activist from Pallavaram, sad the parks must be maintained under government fund. “If the keys are given to residents, will the corporation not put a security guard in charge? How it is the duty of residents to maintain,” he asked.
He suggested that the Tambaram corporation could go in for tenders like Greater Chennai Corporation to maintain parks. “Provisions like this must be formed and penalties imposed on contractors for poor upkeep,” he added.
Sunil Jayaram of Chitlapakkam Rising, an NGO, said the corporation’s move was aimed at washing away its responsibilities. “This is not sustainable. Other than some well organised colonies, a majority of the residents will not come forward to upkeep their neighbourhoods. It is the government’s responsibility to do it,” he said.
There has been no visible change in terms of civic improvement since the Tambaram corporation was formed, he charged.
