New buildings for Salem Corporation

Tuesday, 28 November 2017 08:03 administrator
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The Hindu       28.11.2017 

New buildings for Salem Corporation

Salem Corporation has moved to a spacious new office on Monday.E. Lakshmi Narayanan  

It has a reverse osmosis drinking water plant too

The Salem Corporation moved to a spacious three-flour new office in the city on Monday.

The new office has come up at an outlay of Rs. 13 crore, and has an underground car parking facility.

The Salem Municipal Council was formed in 1866 and it was upgraded into Corporation in 1994 and since then it continued to function in the old building near the Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital.

With city limits getting extended, more officials and staff were pressed into service, leading to space crunch in all the departments in the existing building. Following this, the corporation sought permission from the State Government for the construction of a new office.

The late Jayalalithaa laid foundation stone for the construction of new office through video conferencing on December 30, 2013.

The government sanctioned Rs. 5 crore under the Infrastructure Gap Filling Fund in 2012-13 and the corporation chipped in Rs. 2 crore.

The work on the construction of the basement, ground floor and the first floor was completed in two years.

The corporation once again submitted proposal for the construction of second and third floor, following which the government again sanctioned Rs. 5.13 crore under the Infrastructure Gap Filling Fund 2015-16.

The Chief Minister declared open the new office during the MGR birth centenary celebrations in the city on September 30 this year.

According to corporation sources, the ground floor has been allotted for the offices of different departments, while the offices of the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, council hall will function on the first floor. The Commissioner’s room is situated on the second floor, apart from the gallery for the general public to view the proceedings of the council meetings and press gallery. The third floor will too have different departments.

A reverse osmosis drinking water has also been commissioned.

The work of shifting the offices commenced on Thursday and the new corporation office started functioning from the new premises in a full-fledged manner from Monday.

The Salem Corporation accounted for a population of 8.26 lakh and 60 wards spread over in four zones – Suramangalam, Hasthampatti, Ammapet and Kondalampatti.