FCC

Puthur Smart City mall in Trichy progresses at snail’s pace

2022-10-12

The construction of an air-conditioned mall in Puthur under the Smart Cities Mission is progressing at a snail’s pace, with the Trichy Corporation completing only 60% of the civil work so far. The timely commissioning of the project seems to be an uphill task as funding under the Smart Cities programme is to cease by March 2023.

As per the design, the Rs 202-million mall will have three floors with basement parking. Of the three floors, structural work has been completed only on the first floor. Electrical works and façade development still look far off. This has raised doubts whether the project could be commissioned before the fund lapses.

The mall was designed to have a 106,000 sq ft built-up area including office space, commercial outlets, food courts and movie halls on the third floor.

The delay in commissioning the project means the liveability parameters of the city, which is crucial to attract investments in the IT sector, are lagging.

Capitalising on the demand, private mall projects have come up along the Trichy-Chennai National Highway and near the international airport.

“Shortage of raw materials during the Covid-19 pandemic and fund crunch were stated as reasons for the delay. We have told the contractors to expedite the pending work before March 2023,” a senior corporation official said.

Preliminary work on the mall was launched in December 2019. The major work on the mall commenced in October 2020.