Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) Board meeting on Thursday turned a verbal battleground between the civic body administrators and Councilors the moment it kicked off.
Councilors stood up from their seats and kept on demanding fair probe of a number of issues including stone dust supply and others amid Commissioner and Deputy Mayor requesting them to sit and discuss things peacefully.
The meeting which was called to discuss measures to be taken during upcoming festive season starting from October 1 with Navratri, was hijacked by Councilors right at the moment it started. The meeting soon turned into a verbal battleground with Councilors shouting over civic body administrators over issues.
The meeting which started around 12 at noon, ended past 6 in the evening with only one major proposal accepted-the name of road connecting Shahid Chowk and Mahavir Chowk and moving toward Ratu Road to be changed to Bhamashah Path soon.
City Commissioner Prashant Kumar in presence of Mayor Asha lakra, Deputy Mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya, Additional City Commissioner Vidyanand Sharma ‘Pankaj’, Deputy City Commissioner Sanjay Kumar, Health Department officials in civic body, Engineers and others tried his best to take the situation in his hands and to proceed further. All the efforts from Vijayvargiya to extinguish the ire of Councilors, too, went in vein.
It appeared at a point during meeting that Councilors had come prepared to lock horns with top civic administrators. The whole drama started when Ashok Baraik, Councilor of ward no 28 stood up demanding clarification from Prashant Kumar over supply of stone dust during recently celebrated Karama festival.
Supported by other councilors as well, he demanded a probe of Navyuwak Sangh Durga Pooja Samiti (lower Chutia) President Rajkumar Mahto accusing ward no 14 Councilor of under supply and over payment of stone dust during Karama. However, when Kumar cleared that only actual payments were made by RMC in that case, he demanded a defamation case to be lodged against Mahto, which was accepted.
But that appeared only tip of iceberg, and accusations and probe demands appeared floating from every other councilor. Poor quality water supply in many parts of the city including Harmu Housing Colony again overshadowed many other issues in the meeting. Councilors were calmed down only with a promise of fair probe into the matter.
Vijayvargiya said after the meeting was over that Kumar, being a bureaucrat, was fair enough with thinking the profit-loss way while running the corporation. “However, it is the corporation of elected people, who are answerable to citizens. Hence, we need to think beyond balance sheet while dealing with a number of issues and concerns, and we are trying to do the same,” said Vijayvargiya.
He said that the fund crunch left the meeting with no other option than to reject two ideas. “A six per cent increase in DA of employees of the Corporation was rejected for the time being. Proposal of salary increment of 6 employees was also rejected due to same reason in the second half of the meeting, which took place uninterrupted,” said the Deputy Mayor.
