Mangaluru: Mayor Jecintha Vijay Alfred chaired a council meeting of Mangalore City Corporation at the Mangala auditorium on Thursday, July 30. Many issues apart from those highlighted below, were discussed, like parking, and traffic jams were also discussed. Purushotham Chitrapura, the deputy mayor was also present in the meeting.
After observing two minutes silence, in honour of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam who passed away on July 27, the meeting began with opposition members alleging that MCC is collecting heavy taxes from the people but the service provided to them is poor.
In this regard, opposition member, Sudhir Shetty said, “Even small houses are asked to pay Rs 480 as garbage management tax. On the other hand Antony waste management is collecting the waste from outskirts and their vehicle was found collecting garbage. The ruling party had promised to reduce this cess. When the corporation is in need of revenue why they have increased only 45 percent on hoardings on corporation property?”
Replying to this works committee president Harinath Jogi said “Previous commissioner had increased the amount on hoardings and made a decision not to increase it until 2016. But we called a meeting with these people and amicably decided to increase this amount by 45 percent. If we increase it more, they will go to court and the corporation will lose the revenue what it is receiving now. Garbage cess has been reduced to Rs 240 just the half of the previous amount.”
Smart City
A point of cheer for the citizens of Mangaluru came when the meeting took note of the fact that the city was eligible to be a smart city on the basis of evaluation of its present condition obtained 96.88 marks in the process carried out by the state mission director. The meeting resolved to nominate the city for the smart city plan. The Mayor was jubilant when she said “Score card on smart city was prepared and Mangaluru has got maximum score in the evaluation meeting held in Bengaluru. So we have a high chance of getting a smart city status among 6 cities.”
Underground drainage
Opposition members were of the opinion that with the with blockages everywhere in the drainage system, not all the STP’s were working properly. They also opposed the 2nd stage of KUDCEMP as there are some works pending in the 1st KUDCEMP. Officials however countered their allegations saying that there are STP plants in Pachanady, Kavoor, Surathkal, Bajal, Jeppinamogaru, Kudroli. Surathkal STP which is not working due to electrical cable problem will be repaired soon.
On pending works in KUDCEMP 1, commissioner Gokuldas Nayak told the meeting that the Urban Development minister Vinay Kumar Sorake, has taken the initiative in this regard and the pending works will be completed soon at at cost of Rs: 19 Crore.
Water problem
Water problem has been rampant in recent days and corporators alleged that the officials always blamed on electricity cuts. However, one member said that at Katipalla and Krishnapura, pipes are 20 years old and they need to be changed. For which the officials said that the process of tendering is on and they would be replaced at the earliest. They did admit that power cuts were creating problems in the pumping stations and affecting water supply.
Still on the subject of water supply, BJP corporator Vijay Shetty said “People have not received the water bills from past 6 months. It becomes difficult for them to pay, if the bills are sent once in 6 months. Now people are asking for bills. The company which is responsible has collected bills only from 29,000 connections out of 77,000 connections. So there is serious need to take some action on this company.”
Replying to this commissioner said “Previous contractor Bellari based company which was not collecting the bills in a proper way. so now tender has been given to some other company and the old company has not surrendered all the data. Once the data transfer is done, bills will be collected promptly.”
Footpath
Corporators also demanded footpaths for pedestrians. They alleged that the MCC was concentrating on roads to the detriment of pedestrians. Works committee president Deepak Poojari said that the MCC was working out a strategy to overcome proceedural issues “As there are only few contractors who can take the work costing more than Rs 1 crore, the work will be divided into small amounts and given.”
