Congress councillors protest against govt, MC officials

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, March 21

The Congress councillors who are in majority in the current MC House staged a protest at the entrance of the MC’s Zone D office on Tuesday against the state government and the MC authorities for allegedly stopping development works such as construction of roads, development of parks, installation of water tube wells, etc, in their respective wards. District Congress Committee president Sanjay Talwar and some other leaders also joined the protest.

3 contractors get notices for delaying works

MC officials said the civic body was tightening the noose around contractors over the delay in the completion of works at the ground level. MC Commissioner Shena Aggarwal said it had recently put three contractors on notice for delaying development works.

They said the MC House term would end on March 25 but the development projects (under the councillor quota) were not being started in their respective wards due to the interference of leaders of the ruling party in the state. A protesting leader alleged that AAP MLAs want to inaugurate such projects after March 25 so that they could claim credit for the councillor quota works.

Talwar alleged that the development works under the councillor quota had been stalled in the wards. Various development projects for which the work orders were issued during the regime of the previous Congress government had not been started at the ground level to date.

He said the councillors went to meet MC Commissioner Shena Aggarwal today but she was unavailable at the office today. Earlier also, the councillors had met the Commissioner but the matter was not resolved.

“We demand that the development works in the wards must be started within two days. If these works are not started, we will plan a further strategy”, he said.

Congress Councillors, including Senior Deputy Mayor Sham Sundar Malhotra, Baljinder Singh Bunty, Mamta Ashu, Dilraj Singh, Baljinder Kaur among several others participated in the protest. The councillors and other leaders present there condemned the performance of the AAP government and said corporation officials were working under political pressure due to which the people were forced to suffer.

MC officials said the MC was tightening the noose around contractors over the delay in the completion of works at the ground level. MC Commissioner Shena Aggarwal said the civic body had recently put three contractors on notice for delaying the development works. A warning had also been issued to other contractors that strict action would be taken if they failed to complete the projects within the stipulated deadline, she said.

Meanwhile, the MC officials said in the past three weeks only, the civic body had issued around 60 work orders for the construction of roads, parks, installation of tube wells, sewer lines, etc, at a cost of over Rs 20 crore. Regular efforts were being made to expedite the development works in the city.