R 12 lakh, 84 hours later, MC house meets come to nought

In the past one year, the municipal corporation has spent around Rs 12 lakh and 84 hours on monthly general house meetings, but has failed to provide any relief to residents.

In most of the meetings, the councillors have paid mere lip service on the issues of basic amenities, thereby emptying its coffers futilely.

Even in the house meeting held on Monday, councillors demanded action-taken report of the issues and agendas discussed in the past year, but the departments concerned had not prepared any such report.

Various issues, such as stray dog menace, insanitation, water logging, encroachments, water scarcity, shortage of sweepers, were discussed in meetings throughout the year, but residents are yet to get respite from them.

The civic body has also not approved or initiated any new project in the past one year. Also multiple projects continue to hang fire, such as the Rs 45-crore multilevel parking project, which was initiated two years ago and is still waiting for environment clearance.

On an average, councillors spend around seven hours at each monthly meeting, which comes to 84 hours in one year. The cost of one house meeting is nearly Rs 1 lakh, of which Rs 60,000 is spent on lunch, while Rs 500 are paid as honorarium to each councillor for attending the meeting, which comes to Rs 17,500 for 35 councillors. The rest is spent on stationary and preparing agenda booklets.

Nominated councillor Shagufta Parveen said, “The house meetings throughout the year were sheer wastage of money and time. It is sad that discussions on various agendas took place, but there was no outcome. Being representatives of residents, our aim is to provide better amenities, but the situation in city has gone bad to worse in the past one year.”

Another nominated councillor, Major DS Sandhu (retd), who asked about the status of issues previously discussed in the Monday meeting, said, “It’s a sad state of affairs that the house meetings have not borne any result. Also the house has not been informed about any action taken by the departments concerned.”

Mayor’s take
City mayor Raj Bala Malik said, “As far as new projects are concerned, we could not initiate them as there were a number of pending projects in the pipeline. Regarding providing basic amenities, I have pulled up the officers of departments concerned several times, and I feel things are getting back on track gradually.”

Ruling Congress arrogants, alleges Oposition
The opposition councillors have alleged that the Congress councillors being in majority have shown their arrogance and might by taking decisions without taking them in confidence in the past year. Bharatiya Janata Party councillor Arun Sood said in the March meeting, the Congress got the two-year-old multilevel parking project approved without any discussion.

He added, “In the August meeting, ruling councillors with the help of nominated councillors cancelled the under-construction project of 136 pucca booths at Mauli Jagran. It was brutal murder of democracy, which happened for the first time in MC’s history.”

“Also in the meeting held on Monday, all agenda items were approved without any discussion, and the National Anthem was also insulted,” he added.