Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), responsible for providing basic facilities to the citizens, has been in search of a place to set up its office for over two decades. Though the Mayor claims that soon civic body headquarters would come up at Mata Mandir, however, nothing concrete has come up in this regard. There is an urgent need to bring all wings of the civic body under one roof as hundreds of residents approach BMC every day to get their issues related to water, roads, cleanliness and transport resolved.
Citizens as well as municipal staff have to face a lot of inconvenience visiting these offices. Various municipal offices and wings like health, waterworks, transport, food, pension, birth and registration, civic hospital, property tax, encroachment and others are located in different parts of the city. Until 2014, the municipal office used to operate from Sadar Manzil, however, the dilapidated building and lack of space had forced the authorities to shift to other locations.
The BMC thus for the last two decades has been searching for a campus where all its offices could come up and citizen could get all municipal facilities at one place. As of now, the Mayor and his personal staff sit in Harshwardhan complex located at Mata Mandir. The complex also has chairperson and council office there. Besides, corporators of the two parties too face the hassle as they do not have wings to hold their meetings.
Interestingly, the BMC has tried shifting its office for which several locations including Indira Priyadarshini Park at Ploytechnique square, Arera Hills, the building adjoining Bhopal Development Authority (BDA) at MP Nagar, Traffic (Yaatayat) park and area near Board Office Square were identified.
The then Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh had even performed bhoomipoojan of proposed office at Yaatayaat Park, however, the project had hit the road block. A shopping mall has come up in area near Board Office Square earlier selected for the BMC office. Public health engineering (PHE) department and civic body are at loggers head over the land adjoining the department being used by BMC for parking its garbage collection vehicle. The matter has now reached court.
Civic body HQ at Mata Mandir soon, claims Mayor
Mayor Alok Sharma when contacted said that soon out BMC headquarters will come up at Mata Mandir. The dispute pertaining to the land has been resolved and now new office building will take shape very soon there, he added.
BMC’s old Sadar Manzil complex
Till 2014, the BMC complex at Sadar Manzil had offices of Mayor, chairperson, commissioner, additional commissioner, deputy commissioner and general administration department (GAD), establishment. The department of pension, accounts, audit, revenue, health, chemist, dog section, encroachment, central store of the BMC, finance, education, law section, planning (yojana) cell and garden section were also located there. Food department which is responsible for the ration card, death and birth certificate, electricity department, engineering section were also located on the same premises. Besides, chambers of Congress and BJP corporators where they would hold their routine meetings were also there at the complex.
BMC has office at all places
The offices of the Mayor, chairperson, commissioner, additional commissioners, deputy commissioners, GAD, establishment, pension, revenue and property tax, hoarding cell, parking, tahbaajari, chief engineer of water works, LUM, audit cell, law and finance are now running in BMC office located at Harshwardhan Nagar at Mata Mandir. The offices of encroachment, education, animal cell, Pariyojana cell for stray cattle are running in Shaqeela Bano building and Fatehgarh.
While Municipal hospital, the birth and death registration, central store and sports cell are running in the Ambedkar library, however these facilities were already running there, the public relation office (PRO) section was once in the Ambedkar library which has now be relocated near the new market. he computer cell and information office, health, marriage registration and building permission cell’s office are running in Annapurna Bhawan near Fatehgarh.
The guest house at Shyamla hills has now been converted into office of lake conservation and the fire department as well as the sewage department. Mayor and commissioner also sit there. The office of the engineering section is head quartered at Govindpura while the offices of the lighting cell as well as the civil department are also located there. Similarly, the offices of housing for all (HFA) and Bhopal city link limited (BCLL) are located at ISBT.
The office of fire sub-station is located at link road number 3 while the central workshop of the BMC is located at Mata Mandir and is running on the land of PHE. The garden section is running in Kamla park while the diesel tank and water supply section is located at link road number 3. The office of the building permission for the new city is located near Shahpura.
