Chennai: The inordinate delay by the state election commission to conduct local body polls and appoint elected representatives have started creating new problems for the local body officials.
The latest trend is to either detain government staff or verbally abuse the revenue officials for sleeping over on civic issues.
The villagers of Sandhai Vellore grama panchayat coming under Sriperumbudur block in Kancheepuram on Monday warned the local government staff that they would be detained during the next panchayat meeting, if the revenue and civic authorities fail to attend the basic works like road repair and removal of garbage.
On Republic Day, villagers detained the village panchayat secretary and a deputy tashildar for three hours and locked them inside the panchayat union school where the grama panchayat meeting was held.
“This is the second time that the villagers have vowed to do so. Last time the police rushed and rescued the errant bureaucrats, now the clock his ticking for the next detention,” said the villagers pointing out that the state local administration has failed to administer. “We are forced to detain government staff,” the villagers told DC wishing not to be named.
When contacted Sriperumbudur tashildar Ramesh on the development he said that no cases have been registered against the villagers for detaining three government staffers last week, as it would irritate them further. We are attending to their complaints, the tashildar quipped.
Similarly the residents of Mudhichur town panchayat insisted the head clerk should not go ahead with the grama panchayat meeting as local tashildar and revenue officials were absent for the meeting.
The residents staged a walkout after verbally abusing the clerical staff for not attending public grievances. Civic authorities in Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur are upset as the members of public are now targeting the village administrative officers, tashildars and head clerks of local bodies for pending civic works, earlier they would meet the councillors and village panchayat.
