Chennai corporation's query-free council meet

Chennai: The city corporation’s council meeting on Saturday had only 10 of the total 200 councillors submitted queries about issues pertaining to their respective wards despite Mayor Saidai S. Dura isamy encouraging them to raise issues during question hour. What’s more, the 10 councillors who spoke were from the treasury bench. A ruling party councillor lamented that in spite of the Ma yor’s motivation to raise issues in the council it is the indifference of elected representatives that prevented them from taking people’s problems to the top brass. “Is it for this that the people have elected us to represent them in the council We need to be doing justice to the post to which we have been elected,” the councillor said. Addressing the councillors during the meet, Duraisamy urged them to submit their qu estions in advance rat her than raise their hands during the meeting. “If you give me your questions in adva nce I can come up with a remedy, but if you raise the issue in the council it will take some time for us to look into it as we need to check the files,” he said. There are also councillors who sing: for inst ance, councillor Saroja has the habit of starting her queries with a song. For the DMK councillors, staging a walkout is a routine affair after condemning the sarcastic remarks made by the councillors of the ruling AIADMK. Finally, when the cou ncil convenes, the quorum hardly exists as only 60 to 70 councillors retain their seats. However, commissioner Vikram Kapur observes all the proceedings like his predecessors did.