Chennai: Officials last month excused themselves from attending to dug-up roads, stalled flyover works and missing links in drains, on account of “poll work”. One day after voting, civic agencies are yet to recover from the hangover of the election.None of the civic contractors were seen at work at key junctions such as Anna Nagar Second Avenue, 100-feet Road and Poonamallee High Road. Roads were left dug up, while work on key projects such as the Vyasarpadi flyover, restoration of the Anna Nagar Bougainvillea Park remain in limbo. Contractors said their bills will be released only by the new finance ministry and that this has resulted in many of them slowing down the pace of their work. R Rama Rao, Greater Chennai Contractor Association president, said the current administration owes 1,620 crore worth of bills for works finished over the past few months. “They also floated a 280 crore tender for footpaths even without financial sanction. Several projects remain pending as officials themselves told contractors to go slow as they were busy with poll work,” said Rama Rao. “They also said that following the enforcement of MCC, they didn’t want hindrances to campaigns,” he said, adding that works are gradually resuming in parts, but it will begin full-fledged only after the new govt comes.Deputy Mayor Mahesh Kumar said GCC is yet to take stock of the ongoing works. “The poll just got over and officials need some rest. They will be back by Monday,” he said. While booth-level works required manpower deployment at 4,085 polling stations, currently the focus is on three strong rooms, and the counting staff are much lesser. This frees up the entire GCC machinery for routine work.V Sandhya of Anna Nagar M Block said senior citizens are struggling as Bougainvillea park has been dug up since Jan. “Senior citizens sit in bus shelters in the morning after walk. GCC must speed up the work,” she said.R Boopalan of Tondiarpet, said GCC has left dug-up SWD pits without barricading too. “These are old projects, and could have been completed during elections, but they did not do it,” he said.
