Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Bhopal Municipal Corporation officers are bracing for sharp criticism from both ruling and opposition parties during the council meeting scheduled for Thursday. In preparatory meetings held on Wednesday, councillors from BJP and Congress agreed to name and demand action against officials who repeatedly ignore their phone calls.
Councillors said they are forced to escalate even minor civic issues to commissioner because responsible officials fail to respond. BJP district president and MIC member Ravindra Yati recently complained to Commissioner Harendra Narayan, naming Executive Engineer Ashish Srivastava, Assistant Engineer Sumit Kumar Singh and Sub-Engineer Ashutosh Malviya from the electricity wing as officials who never answer calls.
Following the complaint, the commissioner issued show-cause notices to all three. Corporators have now compiled a list of other negligent officials to be discussed in Thursday’s meeting.
Agenda highlights
The council meeting, set for 11 AM at ISBT on July 24, will start with a vote of thanks to sanitation workers and citizens after Bhopal ranked second in cleanliness nationwide. This will be followed by greetings for the holy month of Sawan and upcoming festivals.
One hour has been allocated for Question Hour, after which the council will take up key proposals including construction of new immersion ghats, implementation of AMRUT 2.0 and new naming proposals.
Cong to target poor roads, streetlights
At a strategy meeting held at Acharya Narendra Dev auditorium, Congress corporators led by Leader of Opposition Shabista Zaki decided to highlight public issues and recent toilet fees hike.
Corporator Yogendra Singh Chauhan said that many areas suffer from non-functional streetlights and severely damaged roads, leading to frequent night-time accidents.
Quarterly budget system
Opposition is set to oppose the new quarterly budget allocation system. Chauhan explained that although the annual budget was presented on April 3, ward-level work bookings are now processed only quarterly. Officials have stated funds for future projects will be released only after completion of work in the current quarter. Congress argues this is stalling development work across wards.
“Even decisions taken in zone committee meetings are being ignored by officials,” said Chauhan. “Now with the quarterly budget system, development in our wards has almost come to a standstill.”
