Coimbatore Corpn. sets Sept. 30 deadline to complete a part of lake project

‘Unavailability of workers is one of the reasons for further delay in the project’

Coimbatore Corporation has set a new deadline to complete a part of the lake development project it has taken up under the Central Government’s Smart Cities Mission. “I’ve asked the engineers supervising work in Smart Cities Mission to complete the Quick Win component of the project by September 30,” Commissioner P. Kumaravel Pandian told The Hindu.

The Quick Win component is part of the project that the Corporation took up for development to showcase to the public what it intended to do with the city’s water bodies. The ₹ 89- crore component covers the a kilometre of the northern bund of Ukkadam Big Tank (Periyakulam) and the stretch of Valangulam tank bund beneath the Sungam-Ukkadam flyover and the road across that connects Trichy Road to Sungam Bypass Road.

The Commissioner said he gave the revised deadline to the engineers after visiting the lake fronts a few days ago and reviewing the progress make in the lake development project.

The Corporation’s first deadline for the Quick Win component for which it had floated tender in 2018 was March 2019. It then revised the deadline twice and in May this year it had informed the Smart Cities Mission Director Kunal Kumar that it would complete the project by June.

Sources familiar with the lake development project said the unavailability of workers, who had returned home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was one of the reasons for further delay in the project.

The Quick Win component forms part of the ₹ 700 crore-odd lake development work involving eight water bodies in the city. Of the eight tanks, the Corporation will do only eco-restoration and cleaning work in the Singanallur tank so as to preserve the environment there.

The Corporation has also been facing challenge in developing the Krishnampathy tank as there have been no takers for the development work proposed there.