Former Ganjam District BJP president and senior leader Kanhu Charan Pati levelled serious allegations against the Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) concerning different development projects here on Tuesday.
Pati said that several development projects initiated and executed by the former BeMC Commissioner in the name of beautification of the silk city by spending huge of amount of money from the State exchequer have become defunct and lying in a shambles as there is no maintenance.
Citing examples of a few development works executed by the previous Commissioner, Pati said that, projects like Mobile Toilet, Water ATM, pictures drawn on walls in different strategic places, waste/garbage management plant and several such works for which lakhs of rupees were spent in the name of beautification are currently in a bad shape thanks to lack of maintenance.
Pati further alleged that the incumbent Commissioner of BeMC seems not to have taken seriously the various development and beautification works already executed by his predecessor. Similarly, the former Commissioner by spending lakhs of rupees had prepared different artistic works made up of iron and displayed them in different strategic locations as a part of beatification work. But most of them are currently non-existent which is quite surprising, told Pati.
Instead of looking into the proper maintenance of the mobile toilets established in different places of the city by the previous Commissioner to make them functional, the present Commissioner, on the other hand, is spending lakhs of rupees in the name of ‘Bio-Toilet’ which too is neither in habitable state nor being utilised by the public for whom it is intended. Hence, it is a sheer wastage of tax payer’s money, he alleged.
Similarly, many a time, the Commissioner has assured that the Water ATMs will soon be made operational, but in vain, Pati alleged. Though the heat wave has already started, the BeMC has failed to make provision of “ Jala Chatra” in different locations of the city which were usually done by previous Commissioners during summer. Similarly, the much touted Janibilla water supply project is yet to be completed which is sheer betrayal. CM Naveen Patnaik was elected by befooling the public in name of clean drinking water to every household by March 2020 before the last Assembly election, Pati told.
The condition of BeMC drains and roads in many parts of the city are worse than ever and the sanitation in true sense is almost non-existent. All the drains in the city are choked with garbage and solid wastes which are hardly removed and cleaned, thereby causing inconvenience to the public, he stated.