Councillors say they are not getting cooperation from officials

Councillors unite against officials' negligence in city upkeep, leading to heated arguments and demands for accountability at council meeting.

Cutting across party lines, councillors raised their voices unanimously against the ‘nonchalant’ attitude of the officials in the civic body and blamed them for the poor upkeep in the city, at the council meeting held here on Friday.

The DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, CPI (M), Congress and others joined in pointing out the deficiencies in their wards independently and collectively that on many occasions, Mayor Indrani Pon Vasanth, who was in the chair, had to be supported by Commissioner Dinesh Kumar and officials.

There were heated arguments and exchanges in between on many occasions throughout the session.

At one point, the entire officials staged a walk-out condemning an Independent councillor K. Jayachandran for his ‘indecent’ tone and tenor, who blamed them squarely for the shabby state of his ward.

A few of the councillors demanded the Mayor to suspend the member for his ‘derogatory’ remarks and the Commissioner sought an apology from the member.

Finally, the Independent councillor made his point loudly and left the hall.

Earlier, from the beginning of the question hour, the members pointed their fingers to the poor performance in lifting garbage to providing potable water to the non-functioning of street lights and for not preventing stray cattle/dog menace. The list of woes was long and justified by many of the councillors.