Mumbai: The study tours of various statutory and special committees of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finally cancelled after the corporators received instruction from the Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray and Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray.
Though no official announcement to cancel the study tour was made, Shiv Sena corporators who are also on the head positions on the committees in the BMC took a back step on this after getting instruction from the party line.
“We got instruction from Aaditya Thackeray to cancel the study tours as the BMC’s revenue has already reduced to half due to various reasons and corporators going on study tours will give a wrong message to people. Therefore, the tours are cancelled,” Sada Parab, Chairman of the Improvement’s Committee, said.
“This is just like making like fun of corporators, as the news were spread all around that the corporators will be going on study tour. Why was the proposal for the study tour passed in the group leaders meeting,” asked opposition leader Ravi Raja.
In 2016, after coming under for severe flak for what was seen as an unnecessary waste of public funds, corporators of the BMC had themselves resolved to stop study tours in 2016. But again the study tours were started in 2018.
Recently, BMC’s Works Committee member Datta Pondage of the Shiv Sena recently proposed a study tour to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with the stated aim being to study the drainage system there and borrow ideas that can be replicated in Mumbai to tackle water-logging.
The proposal for the tour has been amended by another member Shraddha Jadhav of Shiv Sena, who proposed a study tour to Chandigarh instead of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The proposal was been sent to municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi for approval, and the committee members were confident of getting a nod for the trip.
Past experience has shown that study tours under various pretexts to other cities or countries end up being nothing more than paid junkets for corporators. Recommendations based on these trips, if cited at all, remain only on paper.
Corporators have also visited the same cities or countries on multiple occasions, but these trips have failed to yield any benefits for the city.
