Cold catches civic body napping

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 13

While snow in the hill areas of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh has brought cold to the city early this year, the local Municipal Corporation is yet to set up temporary night shelters.

The delay in setting up the shelters has landed homeless people in more hardship, who have been forced to sleep on footpaths or verandahs outside showrooms in the chilly winter nights without any protection.

Sources said the Administration had entrusted the task of setting up the shelters to the Municipal Corporation this time. Earlier, the Department of Social Welfare used to be responsible for setting up the shelters.

The Department of Social Welfare had been asked to assist the MC in identifying the places where the shelters were to come up. While the locations were identified earlier, the MC failed to allot the work in time.

The sources said the MC cancelled the first tender for the allotment of work after bidders quoted inflated prices of over Rs 1 crore. After cancelling the tender, the MC again floated a tender in which the bidders reduced the price and work was allotted to a firm for around Rs 82 lakh.

RK Garg, a social activist, said it would take one more week to set up the shelters.