MC General House now on Diwali eve

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 14

The Municipal Corporation (MC), Bathinda, has scheduled a General House meeting to be held a day prior to Diwali, on October 18.

The meeting was earlier scheduled to be held on October 12, but it was postponed on the ground that the agenda of the meeting was not ready on time.

It is worth mentioning that in the last General House meeting held on September 6, development works worth an estimated Rs 35 crore were approved with the hope of approval and grant from the state government, but the agenda has not been approved till date.

At the upcoming General House meeting, most proposals on the agenda are related to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

A proposal has been put up to create a Science City on the pattern of Kapurthala Science City at the Rose Garden in Bathinda. It is been argued that children will be able to learn science while playing and Rs 22 lakh has been kept aside as the estimated cost of the project.

The MCB has also put up a proposal to install 800 covered dustbins in the city at a cost of Rs 48 lakh. This proposal will also be tabled in the meeting. These dustbins will be installed at various places in the city and the estimated cost per dustbin is Rs 6,000.

One dustbin of this design has already been installed at the cloth market on the Mall Road in the city. The MC is also planning to put up a proposal for night cleaning, in which sanitation workers would clean the roads in the main markets at night.

Even the proposal of imposing registration fee on pet animals in the city would be tabled for approval in the House.

The issue of dustbins is one proposal which is likely to increase the heat during the meeting as the councillors can object stating that last year, stainless steel dustbins worth Rs 24 lakh were installed in the city. They were either stolen or are missing but despite this, no FIR has been registered by the MCB officials.

Councillors Sukhwinder Kaur and Nirmal Kaur stated that they would raise questions on this in the General House meeting as to what action was taken at the earlier General House meeting.