MC House resolves to waive Rs 9,000 recovery charges
Rajinder Nagarkoti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, June 23
First, councillors took family members, relatives along on the study tour on the expenditure of the state exchequer, and now, when the Municipal Corporation(MC) has initiated recovery proceedings against them, the councillors, cutting across party lines unitedly passed an agenda in the MC General House meeting to waive Rs 9,000 recovery charges, which the civic body had ordered to deduct from their monthly honorarium.
It was only BJP councillor Satinder Singh, who opposed the agenda to waive off the recovery charges. Last week, the Municipal Corporation had started the process of deducting the expenses incurred on the family members of nine councillors, including the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor, during the study tour last year from their monthly honorarium. BJP councillor Asha Kumari Jaiswal had already deposited Rs 9,000 with the MC.
Recently, the MC had issued recovery notices to nine councillors, who had taken their family members along with them on the study tour to Chennai, Kolkata and Port Blair last year.
The notice issued by the MC stated, “The corporation cannot bear the expenditure incurred on your families during the study tour. It is, therefore, requested to either deposit Rs 9,000 with the cashier of the Municipal Corporation or the same may be recovered from your monthly honorarium.”
The councillors, who had taken their family members along with them, had opted for “double occupancy” in hotels instead of “single occupancy” opted by the other councillors and officials. As there was a difference in the rates of single and double occupancy, the MC was recovering the difference of amount from the councillors, an MC official said. Last year, the civic body had spent Rs 28 lakh from the public exchequer on the controversial study tour to Chennai, Kolkata and Port Blair.
A total of 39 members — 19 councillors, the Mayor, six UT and MC officials and 13 members of councillors’ families — had gone on the to
