Urging the Stalin-led Tamil Nadu Government to establish the Civil Engineers’ Council, the Tirunelveli District Civil Engineers’ Association has appealed to the Central and the State Governments to take effective steps for controlling the prices of construction materials such as cement, steel etc.
Speaking to reporters here on Thursday, president of the Association C. Muthukumar and secretary S. Peratchi Selvan said the ruling DMK government should establish Civil Engineers’ Council, as promised during Assembly election, for registering qualified civil engineers similar to the registration of doctors.
As the Councils established in Gujarat and Karnataka had yielded desirable results and ensured quality construction, similar practise should be followed in Tamil Nadu.
The association criticised the Tirunelveli Corporation’s decision to collect ₹5,000 as deposit in addition to the fee of ₹5,000 for enrolling the engineers with the Corporation. The enrolment done with the local body should be accepted as ‘lifetime registration’ by all urban and rural civic bodies across Tamil Nadu for ensuring ease of doing business.
They urged the government that the members of the civil engineers association should also get the one-time password on their mobile phone along with the property owner when the self-declaration application for building plan approval was submitted for ensuring transparency.
Expressing concern over the spiralling prices of the construction materials, the civil engineers said that the cement imported from Pakistan a few years ago was ₹100 less than the domestic brands even after paying all import duties.
“It (the Paksitan cement) was also of good quality like the home-grown cement brands. The all-powerful local cement cartel is preventing the Centre from importing cement from Pakistan. If the Centre is not comfortable with importing cement from Pakistan, we can import it from China or other Asian countries if the government is really concerned about nation’s development,” they said.
They also said the local people involved in sand business successfully stopped the governments from importing sand from other countries for construction purpose.
“The imported sand could not be taken out of the seaports due their pressure,” Mr. Muthukumar alleged.
Since the M-Sand now being largely used for construction will also vanish one day, the government should mull over using sand quarried from the sea for construction purpose as being done in the Gulf countries, he added.
The association representatives have met Ministers E.V. Velu and S. Muthusamy in this connection.
Published – October 23, 2025 07:33 pm IST
