The standing committee meeting of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Monday was suspended by Mayor Asha lakra, when the ward councillors demanded for immediate disposal of all pending cases with the civic body before passing the budget.
Approximately, 100 schemes of different wards are pending with the Municipal Corporation since November 2016. The agitating councillors maintained that if cases are not resolved immediately, then a date must be fixed to conduct procurement committee meeting at the earliest.
After a heated conversation with Sujata Kacchap, a ward councilor, the Mayor, who happens to be the head of Standing Committee, abruptly ended the meeting without citing any valid reason.
Amid protest, officials failed to pass the budget for which the meeting was scheduled.
A councillor alleged that fresh ward councillors’ election will be held in November this year but due to the Mayor’s incompetency, all the welfare tasks have been lingering since long and they are not in a position to give any suitable answer to the residents.
Joining the league, Deputy Mayor Sanjiv Vijayawargia too added that the budget will not get passed until the Mayor fixes any particular date for conducting another meeting and clear the files pending with the civic body.
“RMC authorities should immediately suspend the corrupt staffs responsible for holding back all the important documents. I simply cannot proceed further as an elected representative; I am answerable to public,” said the Deputy Mayor.
On the other hand, lakra instructed the ward councilors to conduct the budget proceedings. “This is not only my responsibility. I will decide the dates only when all the ward councilors are present. If information is sent to all, then they must attend the meeting and discuss the issue,” added lakra in fury.
During the proceeding, Municipal Commissioner Prashant Kumar stated that he is also waiting for the Mayor’s final approval and ready to clear all the pending files. However, despite repeated attempts, the Mayor did not finalize any date for disposal of the pending cases, holding back other important issues like cleanliness, payment of workers, beautification tasks etc.
However, the Municipal Commissioner has assured that cleanliness task will not suffer in any ward as the corporation is trying to resolve the payment issue. “Payment issues will be resolved soon as we are in talks with the company officials. We have sent the notice to the company and also asked them to make necessary amendment. We will charge penalty as well for violating the set norms,” Kumar added.