Debt-ridden MCB plans to install Rs 1-cr tree guards

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 5

The debt-ridden Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) is planning to spend Rs 1.09 crore to buy 2,000 tree guards for the city.

The MCB is planning to bring an agenda regarding the same in the general House meeting scheduled for May 8.

Apart from this, the MCB also plans to spend Rs 35.5 lakh on fixing and installing these tree guards in the city.

This move of the MCB has started receiving criticism as earlier also the civic body had installed around 4,000 tree guards in the city but no one knows where these have been installed.

Also, the MCB had wasted Rs 24 lakh by installing 180 stainless steel dustbins. Within days, the dustbins were damaged or stolen and now, one can hardly find a dustbin installed in the city.

It may be mentioned that the MCB has already borrowed Rs 105 crore as loan from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) to provide drinking water and sewerage facility to all parts of the city. Of this, it has already spent Rs 33 crore. HUDCO had given Rs 105 crore to the MCB in 2014 for the project and in the first two years, the MCB only had to give a basic amount.

From 2016, the MCB had to pay Rs 18 crore as annual interest. The MCB has also taken a loan of Rs 52.50 crore from the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB).

Senior Deputy Mayor Tarsem Goyal, opposing the tree guard move, said it was sheer wastage of public money. It was total mismanagement as there was no need to buy such expensive tree guards, he said.

BJP councillor Anjana Rani said she was surprised to see that the MCB was spending Rs 35 lakh on the installation of tree guards. She would raise the issue in the House meeting as this was wrong and the matter should be looked into seriously.

It is pertinent to mention that a few days ago, Mayor Balwant Rai Nath had written to the Local Bodies Ministry demanding that a Rs-54 crore loan should be converted into funds while on the other hand, the MCB is spending lavishly without proper planning.