Tiruchy women win 4 out of 5 zonal chairperson posts

Four women members out of five were elected unopposed as zonal chairpersons of Tiruchy City Corporation here on Wednesday while in Karur four zonal chairpersons were elected unopposed.

The indirect elections for the five zonal chairpersons of 65 wards Tiruchy Corporation was scheduled on Wednesday. Since no member contested against the DMK members, all the five members were elected unopposed. Interestingly, out of five zonal chairpersons, four were women.

Accordingly, Andal Ramkumar of ward 4 was elected unopposed for Zone 1, while Jaya Nirmala (ward 32) was elected for zone 2. Similarly, Mathivanan (ward 16) was elected for Zone 3 while Durga Devi (ward 52) was elected for Zone 4 and Vijayalakshmi Kannan (ward 22) was elected for Zone 5.

All the elected zonal chairpersons were distributed the winning certificate by Commissioner PMN Mujibur Rahman. He also administered the oath to the chairpersons.

Meanwhile, in Karur Corporation, all the four DMK members were elected unopposed. Accordingly, Sakthivel for zone 1, Anbarasan for zone 2, Raja for zone 3 and Kanagaraj for zone 4 were elected unopposed. Commissioner Ravichandran distributed winning certificates and administered oaths.

Rebel councillor stages sit in

Meanwhile, in Vellore Corporation, the indirect polls for the posts of 4 zonal chairpersons resulted in a DMK rebel candidate, who filed his nomination, staging a sit in when his nomination was rejected.

While official DMK candidates Pushpalatha Vanniaraja and Venketesan were chosen unopposed for zones 1 and 4, DMK’s Yusuf Khan won by 11 votes against AIADMK candidate in zone 3.

Rebel DMK candidate RB Elumalai filed papers for zone 2 chairman’s post against official candidate R Narendran. Commissioner Ashok Kumar rejected Elumalai’s nomination and announced Narendran as winner. Miffed Elumalai staged a sit in demanding to know why his nomination was accepted in the morning, but was suddenly rejected. Elumalai got support from some councillors too.

Kovai Corpn to introduce new levies

The cash-strapped Coimbatore Corporation on Wednesday announced a series of levies to shore up revenue.

Tabling a Rs 19.31 crore deficit budget at the council meet for the financial year 2022-2023, Kalpana Anandakumar, the first woman Mayor of Coimbatore Corporation rolled out various revenue generating measures in the presence of Corporation Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara and Deputy Mayor Vetri Selvan.

After scrapping proposal for on-street parking fee following opposition from political parties, the Corporation has once again revived the scheme to charge two-wheelers and four-wheelers parked on some busy areas like Race Course, RS Puram and DB Road.

Another proposal, which may cause heartburn to people, is the plan to collect solid waste management charges. It has to be paid along with the property tax from this financial year. With this, the civic body is expected to mop up Rs 13.18 crore. Also, the Corporation will levy an annual maintenance charge for 38,175 underground drainage (UGD) connections given so far to households.

In the last five years, the Corporation Commissioners were presenting a surplus budget. However, in a major relief, the Corporation has resolved to take efforts to enhance water supply to once in two days. Also, the Corporation did not make any upward revision in property, business and water taxes.

Meanwhile, three AIADMK councillors walked out of the council by terming the budget as not of any use and it has announced already existing schemes.