Gun for Phanse’s head over shoddy work, stages walkout from general body meet
Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) general body meeting on Thursday drew flak from the opposition parties over the much talked about road repair scam and the increasing number of potholes in the city. City’s Mayor Snehal Ambekar and Ajoy Mehta, Municipal Commissioner, present at the meeting, looked completely hassled by the chaos made by the corporators and party leaders.
The opposition party leaders strictly demanded the resignation of Yahsodhar Phanse, Standing Committee chairman at the BMC, for not acting on queries of the city dwellers. Pravin Chedha, Leader of the opposition party, alleged that the MCGM has not worked towards repairing of city’s potholes. “The corporation spent Rs 136 crore from 2012-2016 for repairing city’s potholes. Moreover, the corporation has proposed for another Rs 33 crore for repairing the potholes for year 2016-2017. Still, the taxpayer’s money seems to be wasted and the work is never completed. The corporation has failed to act towards the needs of the people hence, the Standing Committee chairman and members of the ruling party should resign”, he added.
Number of potholes in Mumbai are less compared to last year: Ajoy Mehta
Chedha further questioned that how can the repaired potholes be reopened. He also alleged that the reason behind the increase in the number of potholes during the monsoon season is because, the quality of the materials used for the construction is substandard and thus these irregularities should be stopped. Meanwhile, MNS Corporator, Sandeep Deshpande, supported Chheda’s allegation and said, “The city roads still are in a bad condition, even after spending crores for their construction and repairs. Therefore, the people involved in the irregularities of the road projects should be penalized and the higher authorities directing the work should resign.”
Speaking to the Free Press Journal, Chheda said, “The city dwellers are troubled due to the unsatisfied condition of the city’s roads and congestion owing to the irregularities and improper planning of the concerned officials. The Shiv Sena-BJP government is responsible for the condition since they have been the ruling party in the MCGM for a long time and still are unable to curb the issues.”
Interestingly, ManojKotak, BJP leader in the MCGM and Phanse tried making their point to the city’s mayor but were put down since the members of the opposition parties created a ruckus by brawling at them, which added much distortion to the attempts made by the members of the ruling party. The opposition party members asked the city’s civic chief to declare if the tainted contractors involved in the road repair scam are blacklisted or they aren’t.
The party members further questioned, “We want the status of the tainted contractors and if they aren’t blacklisted then how can they be awarded with new projects.” Finally, the opposition parties boycotted the general body meeting when they were left unanswered by the ruling party and by Mehta as well.
