A joint front of municipal councillors of Ghaziabad belonging to Opposition, staged a sit in infront of the municipal corporation office on Tuesday.
Zakir Saifi, leader of Congress councillors, Anand Chaudhary of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Mohammad Kallan of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in a joint statement said three months have passed after the House was constituted but no board meeting has been called and as a result of that all the developmental activities have come to a standstill.
They submitted a memorandum, addressed to the Governor Ram Nayak, to the Municipal Commissioner CP Singh. In the memorandum they stated that the newly elected House has not initiated any inquiry into the massive corruption committed during earlier Government on the basis of which the BJP had put it on top in its election manifesto.
The Opposition leaders jointly said that the newly elected Mayor Asha Sharma of BJP after winning the elections, announced to allocate Rs 50 lakh in each ward without the approval of board meeting. She has not initiated any action to expose the corrupt practices committed during former municipal commissioner Abdul Samad under SP Government.
She called only one board meeting especially to elect the executive committee. The grant of Rs 50 lakh was not taken up in the board meeting on January 23, 2018 meeting, but she had announced the grant which have not been sanctioned so far. During her tenure, all the street lights have been replaced by lED lights which are of very poor quality. The councilors are getting complaints of defects in the newly installed lED lights and are not being replaced. All streets are dark during night in absence of replacements, they said.
The sanitation work in their wards are in miserable conditions since all the sanitation workers have been deployed on major roads to show the cleanliness. The sanitation staff are unhappy too as their wages have not been revised since long. They are feeling cheated by false promises, the leaders claimed.
No inquiry has been set up to expose the corrupt activities during previous Government which she promised during her election campaign. The infamous dustbin scam is not being proved despite promises and the entire money is being spent on painting pillars of flyovers. The municipal properties are being grabbed by land grabbers. The poor vendors are being exploited in the name of encroachments.
The pole and parking mafias are active in the city and extorting money from innocent citizens and cheating revenue of the municipal body. The hand pumps are lying defective and people are forced to buy water bottles. The work in Opposition party councilors’ wards are being ignored and public is facing apathy and officers are minting money. The posts of several officers are lying vacant and new posting is not being sanctioned so work is hampering in the area, leaders said.
“They are playing politics in the House. All developmental activities has speeded up after elections. Board meeting is being chalked out shortly to dispose off pendentives. Rs 50/- lakh announcement was to complete the list of pending works in their respective wards so that no time is consumed to prepare list of works. But they are manipulating it in a wrong way” contradicted Mayor Asha Sharma.