By IANS,
Chennai : Fed up with unfulfilled promises from political parties, industry chambers, non-governmental organisations and residents associations in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore city have now given their ten point mission for Lok Sabha aspirants.
“One of the top 20 industrialised cities in the country and Tamil Nadu’s second largest city has been neglected in terms of provision of basic necessities and development of infrastructure,” C.R. Swaminathan, president, Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore (RAAC) told reporters here Friday.
According to him, suggestions from people of Coimbatore received in response to newspaper advertisements were compiled as ten missions for implementation.
“We don’t want to nominate anybody as independent candidate in the forthcoming elections. We will give this to all the political parties as we feel implementation of infrastructure projects needs their support.”
The detailed agenda of the ten point mission include construction of a ring road and by-pass roads, setting up of Coimbatore Urban Development Authority and revising the master plan, housing for slum dwellers under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), improving healthcare, building an agri export complex, improving water bodies, tourism development and augmenting infrastructure facilities like power, railway lines and airports.
According to Swaminathan, the various projects listed in the Vision Kovai Mission 10 would involve an outlay of around Rs.10,000 crore (Rs.100 billion) excluding power projects, and can be completed in five years.
Citing tax revenue of around Rs.3,500 crore (Rs.35 billion) paid by residents and organisations located in Coimbatore, he said the government can recover its investments on these projects in a short time through increased tax collections.
He said the associations are also mulling the idea of building a 1,000 MW thermal power station in Tuticorin to meet the needs of Coimbatore.