Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The agenda of the upcoming Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) council meeting, scheduled to be held on January 13, has sparked controversy as the Mayor’s much-publicised promise of employee regularisation and making contractual staff permanent is missing from it.
Even as a long-delayed Rs 874-crore proposal to provide individual water connections in the city moves forward after three years.
During the last council meeting on October 30, 2025, Mayor Malti Rai had assured that a proposal to regularise municipal employees would be tabled in the next meeting and later sent to the state government for approval. In her closing remarks, the Mayor had promised regularisation benefits to 1,215 regular BMC employees and nearly 12,000 daily wage workers engaged on 29-day contract basis.
However, the agenda released ahead of the January 13 council meeting does not include any proposal related to employee regularisation.
Reacting sharply, BMC Employees’ Union leader Ashok Verma told Free Press that over 13,000 employees have been “betrayed”. He said union representatives would meet Mayor Malti Rai and BMC Commissioner Sanskriti Jain on Thursday and warned that if the promise is not fulfilled, employees would resort to a strike and halt all civic work.
3-Year-Old individual water supply promise
Meanwhile, after a delay of nearly three years, preparations have finally begun to replace bulk water connections with individual household connections in covered colonies. A proposal to this effect will be presented in the January 13 council meeting. If approved, around 829 colonies—out of Bhopal’s total 1,566 colonies—will be eligible for individual water connections at an estimated total cost of Rs. 874.43 crore.
₹801 Crore for Pipelines & ₹72 Crore for smart meters:
According to the BMC’s Water Works Department, Rs 801 crore will be spent on laying pipelines, interconnections, and related infrastructure. An additional Rs. 72.73 crore will be used to install smart water meters in approximately 74,905 houses, at a cost of Rs. 9,709 per house. The Detailed Project Report (DPR) has already been prepared.
Green Municipal Bonds
Apart from the water supply proposal, the January 13 agenda also includes fixing marriage registration fees and raising Rs 200 crore through Green Municipal Bonds for projects under AMRUT 2.0.
Zaki criticises omission
Leader of Opposition in BMC, Shabista Zaki, also criticised the omission, stating that the Mayor had publicly committed in the council to bringing a resolution but had “completely removed the entire matter from the agenda.”
