Corporation engineer suspended for laying road without removing vehicles in Vellore

Dereliction of duty on public works cannot be tolerated, says Corporation Commissioner

A 57-year-old assistant engineer (AE) with the Vellore City Corporation has been placed under suspension by the civic body on Wednesday for dereliction of duty in removing parked vehicles while laying roads, at two locations in the city a week ago.

Based on an inquiry into the incident, which went viral on social media, Corporation Commissioner P. Ashok Kumar and Mayor Sujatha Anandakumar issued the suspension order. Officials said S. Palani, who has been with the civic body since the Allahpuram town was merged with the corporation in 2011, was in-charge of road-laying in Zone 2 and 3 under the multi-crore Smart Cities Mission. “We cannot tolerate such dereliction of duty on public works. We have also blacklisted the private company that was in-charge of the work,” Mr. Kumar, told The Hindu.

It was past midnight on June 27, when a group of contract workers with the civic body laid fresh cement concrete mix on Kaligambal Street near Katpadi, which comes under Zone 2, without re-locating a two-wheeler that was parked on the stretch. In the morning, the bike’s owner K. Yuvaraj came to open his shop and saw his vehicle being stuck in the concrete mix. As he was unable to move his bike, he complained to the civic body about the incident. Mr. Kumar inspected the spot and the vehicle was removed. By then, the video had gone viral on social media.

Few days later, a similar incident occurred when contract workers laid fresh bitumen on Ponniamman Koil Street near Sathuvachari, off the Chennai-Bengaluru Highway (NH 48), where a defunct government jeep got stuck. The street comes under Zone 3 of the civic body.

Officials said due to various infrastructure works including laying of pipelines for the underground sewage system under the Centre’s AMRUT scheme (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation), the civic infrastructure in the city have been damaged for a decade. For instance, of the 655 km of roads to be re-laid under the Smart Cities Projects project, only around 200 km have been re-laid since the start of the project four years ago.

Ms. Anandakumar and Mr. Kumar, have been pushing officials and the private contractors to re-lay the damaged stretches in the city.