Damaged street name boards will be replaced in Chennai: GCC Commissioner

CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) would soon replace the damaged street name boards in the city, Corporation Commissioner J Radhakrishnan informed the council on Tuesday.

The Commissioner's response came after the issue was raised by several ward councillors.

The Mayor in her budget announcement had announced that the ward councillors and the resident welfare associations should come forward to replace the street name boards under the Namakku Naame Thittam, however, the move continues to be a nonstarter even after seven months.

GCC Commissioner J Radhakrishnan stated that the civic body will ensure that the posters are removed from the street name board and steps will be taken to install new name boards across the city. The Corporation had already identified such damaged boards, the commissioner said.

Participating in the issue, V Ramesh (a) Neelakandan, ward 82 councillor said, "Since the name board would be changed once in five years, the corporation should mull over the idea of incorporating the local councillor name in the boards to be installed. Such a move would be easier for the public to be aware of the councillor's name in the city."

Pointing out that the city corporation website has only the photo of Mayor R Priya and Deputy mayor M Magesh Kumaar, BJP councillor Uma Anand of Ward 134 urged the officials to include the names of corporation officials and ward councillors details along with photos in the official website.

The councillors also spoke about the increasing number of dengue cases in Chennai and demanded the council to address the issue.

Responding to the issue, the Corporation council adopted a resolution that gave an administrative clearance for the purchase of 30 new vehicles with fogging machines and 100 hand-operated fogging machines at an estimate of Rs 2.53 crore.

At present, the city has 68 vehicle-mounted fogging machines and 251 hand-operated fogging machines.