Missing of street lights:O&M officials without records

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 13

The committee which was formed to look into the missing streetlights from a 15-km area, starting from Paragpur to Bidhipur in 2015, after the senior members of the Municipal Corporation had sensed a big scam by the O&M branch, has not been able to do anything in the matter.

Today, the committee members held their last meeting chaired by the joint commissioner Gurvinder Randhawa, but the officials of the O&M branch did not change their stance and again came back empty-handed without any record, for the fifth time in a row.

Tired of meetings, and the same replies, Senior Deputy Mayor Surinder Kaur today asked the officials to submit everything in writing to the mayor.

“They could not produce anything. I asked the officials if they had anything with them regarding the project, on their denial, I decided there would be no further meeting in this regard. We will not do the talking now,” Surinder Kaur said, adding that the officials will now submit the report and the MC commissioner and the Mayor will look into the matter.

Passing the buck

Not only this, sources informed that the O&M branch officials passed the buck and said the B&R department had the information on the project, but even the latter denied having any such information.

The Senior Deputy Mayor said according the O&M branch officials, the streetlight project was earlier with another branch, but neither the B&R nor the O&M branch have any record.

Notably, the Congress councillor Des Raj Jassal, who has been raising the issue since 2015, had said that the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had asked the corporation to remove the old streetlights to install the new ones. “But after their removal, the O&M branch has no details about the stocks and register and also no answer as to where all the material (poles, brackets and wires) have gone after the removal of the streetlights,” he said.

“I am amazed to see how the officials do not care regarding even the orders by the committee members,” he said.

Issue raised in House meet

In the last General House meeting, Congress councillor Des Raj Jassal, during the Zero Hour session, had told the Mayor that it was not known where all the material placed on the 15-km stretch had gone.

He said he had been demanding the records for the same from the department but to no avail. The officials had then said there were around 498 poles, to which Jassal had countered, saying the official was telling a lie.

“There were around 800 poles,” he had said.

The councillor said he had even visited the store where, as per the officials, the poles and infrastructure material were kept. “We have not found anything there,” Jassal added. After this, the mayor had formed the committee.