Councillors gherao Panipat MC officials during House meeting

Tribune News Service

Mukesh Tandon

Panipat, September 22

BJP councillors gheraoed the Municipal Corporation officials over poor sanitation, non-functional streetlights, slow pace of floating tenders for development works, encroachments, illegal construction of buildings etc. As many as 13 agenda items out of the 14 were passed at the General House meeting.

Main focus on improving financial health of MC

As many as 13 agenda items were unanimously passed and one was deferred. The government will decide about the land for the indoor stadium in Ward 10, the announcement of which was made by the Chief Minister. The main focus is on improving the financial condition of the MC. Shyam Lal Poonia, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation

Village name changed

• The agenda of changing the name of Babarpur village in Ward 26 to Nanakpura was unanimously passed
• The issue of improper distribution of development funds between Panipat (rural) and Panipat (urban) constituencies in the MC area also taken up

Pramod Vij, MLA, Panipat (urban), brought the agenda of changing name of Babarpur village in Ward 26 to Nanakpura. It was unanimously passed by the House.

Mayor Avneet Kaur chaired the General House meeting. Commissioner Shyam Lal Poonia, officials, MLA Pramod Vij and Senior Deputy Mayor Dushyant Bhatt were present at the meeting, held in the conference hall at the MC office.

MLA Pramod Vij raised the issue of improper distribution of development funds in Panipat (rural) and Panipat (urban) constituencies in the MC area. He said there were 3.28 lakh voters in the MC of which 2.22 lakh were living in urban areas, but the development works worth Rs 67.23 crore were carried out in the wards under the Panipat rural constituency while development works worth only Rs 32.20 were carried out in the wards under the Panipat Urban constituency, which was injustice being done to those residing in the urban area wards. Besides the MC development funds, hundreds of crores rupees coming under the AMRUT scheme are being spent in the rural constituency wards Vij said.

Vij further said he was not against the development in rural wards, but he wanted equal distribution of funds as per the population ratio.

Besides, councillors raised the issue of streetlights and said maximum streetlights were lying non-functional and there was shortage of equipment in the MC. The councillors demanded that these lights be repaired. The MC officials said they were going to allot a tender for the repair of around 15,500 streetlights in the city. The councillors were enraged over the issue of poor supply of potable water in various wards and also alleged that scores of tubewells of potable water were damaged due to which the people were forced to drink dirty water.

Maximum councillors showed their dissatisfaction over the cleanliness system in the city. They said the MC was spending around Rs 4.5 crore on cleanliness every month in the city, but heaps of garbage could be seen everywhere. The councillors also raised the issues of the slow pace of development works and said that the tenders, which were passed in the House, but were not floated by the officials. Officials said there were around 1.80 lakh properties in the city and crores of rupees property tax was pending against these.

Shyam Lal Poonia, Commissioner, MC, said all issues such as water supply, encroachments, development works, lights, sewerage etc, have been discussed peacefully in a good atmosphere at the General House meeting, the Commissioner maintained.

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