Vishwas Dass
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, May 31: Residents of the city are becoming increasingly critical of the way the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) – the largest civic body in the state – is functioning, as basic amenities such as sanitation and cleanliness are going for a toss.
The present council of corporators in the BMC was constituted for a five-year term after civic polls were held last year.
The council of 67 corporators was formed January 17, 2014, with Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena retaining his seat in an unopposed victory.
The recent controversy over the failure of Essel Bhubaneswar Municipal Solid Waste Ltd, a private firm roped in by the civic body to maintain sanitation in 15 wards has tarnished the latter’s image after several residential colonies were littered with solid municipal waste weeks back.
BMC responded by slapped three show-cause notices on the firm for not mending its ways and causing immense hardships to the residents of the affected wards.
The corporation, which had promised to execute many key projects in its previous tenure, is seen by many to be dragging its feet, largely due to a lack of manpower and a paucity of funds and resources.
Delays in developing its headquarters building at Unit VIII (earlier planned at Madhusudan Nagar), establishing a multi super-specialty hospital at Gadakana, and coming up with a solid waste treatment and landfill site at Bhuasuni has invited sharp criticism from all quarters, with questions being raised as to its claims of ‘rapid’ development.
This newspaper recently did a story on how the private firm engaged by BMC to develop solid waste treatment and landfill site at Bhuasuni is exerting pressure on the corporation to change certain clauses in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked between them last year.
Sources said Essel Group is coming up with new requests of modifying conditions of the MoU apparently to reap benefits by mortgaging a section of land on which it would create infrastructure. The city is likely to have its waste treatment plant in another one-and-a-half years.
The cost of constructing the proposed landfill site has escalated from the earlier `200 crore to `250 crore as the company wants to go for new technology to build the solid waste plant. The plant’s construction cost was pegged at `54 crore before signing the MoU.
Similarly, the BMC’s five-acre multi super-specialty hospital proposed at Gadakana is hanging fire for the last two years. The project is with the housing and urban development department (H&UD) which has to select a firm to run the hospital. The 100-bed capacity hospital got traction after its foundation stone was laid during BMC’s self-government day last year.
BMC authorities meanwhile blame the government for the slow recruitment process that affects the civic body’s functioning. The government has reportedly not made any fresh recruitments to the BMC in the last 20 years, while on the other hand the city’s population has grown by leaps and bounds.
BMC had obtained corporation status in 1994 when the city’s population was somewhere around 3.5 lakh. Now, however, the population has almost tripled to nearly one million.
“I’m not fully satisfied with cleanliness standards, but the condition has surely improved ever since the latest council was sworn in. BMC has taken strong note of the private firm that led to the civic body’s image taking a beating last month, and now sanitation standards in the 15 wards are better. The firm is ensuring sanitation,” Mayor Jena said.
The Mayor vowed to bring civic services and amenities in the city at par with metropolitan cities. “There are some loopholes which would be plugged,” Jena said.
Four-time corporator Sheikh Nizamuddin told this newspaper that unless the government increases Octroi compensation for BMC, crucial projects would keep hanging fire. “We are in dire need of funds to improve civic amenities,” he said.
Replacement of convention streetlight bulbs with LED ones, unveiling of Whatsapp helpline number and obtaining charge of planning wing from Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) are some of BMC’s achievements in the last 16 months.