Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) controlled Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) toned-down the proposal for doubling the development charges in unauthorised layouts under Gunthewari Act by deciding to stick with present rate of Rs. 56/sq.ft. Mindful of forthcoming election and high stakes in under developed areas on fringes of city going to swing the balance, the ruling party shot down proposal of Town Planning Department for parity with increased prices of all commodities.

 

Mayor Dayashankar Tiwari told newspersons after the general body meeting that it was felt that citizens in unauthorised layouts should be given one more chance and hence development charges were not hiked. NMC will continue to provide civic services in unauthorised layout at prevailing rate of Rs. 56/sq.ft, though Town Planning Department had contended same is not possible as in market rates of constructions material have hit the roof. The meeting was held on-line while Mayor, Municipal Commissioner and other staff chose to sit at Raje Raghuji Bhonsle Town Hall, Mahal, to conduct the meet. Similarly, another proposal by Town Planning Department of civic body to increase application processing fees under Gunthewari Act by 15 times too was not accepted by the House. Only a partly Rs. 1,000 hike was approved and so now citizens wanting to regularise their plots under Gunthewari Rules need to pay Rs 2,000 along with application to NMC. The members of BJP were quite aggressive in today's meeting as they questioned the propriety of administration unilaterally scrapping schemes approved by House.

 

The ire was particularly directly at former Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe who had stayed all welfare schemes calling them waste. The remark that scheme was a wasteful expenditure irked the members as they cornered the civic officials who could not explain the rationale. So Mayor gave the ruling that the counselling centre run by NMC in name of Anusaya Kale, first woman Member of Parliament of city, should be restarted. The question was raised by Sangeeta Girhe about the status of the counselling centres offering services to distressed women. Along side, the issue of suspension of Ladli Kanya Yojana and rewards for stopping abortion of girl child also figured in the House and members questioned the reason for stopping the same. After the discussion and not to defensive replies by concerned officials, Mayor directed administration henceforth not to stop to unilaterally stop schemes approved by House unless some other effective scheme of State Government is available. Only one App of NMC: Adv. Dharampal Meshram questioned the need for two apps of civic body wherein Mayor instructed that administration should ensure that only app is available to avoid confusion.

 

Adv. Meshram said when Mayor's App was already functioning what was the need for administration to develop another App. Mayor also directed administration to make suitable change in one App whose name will be decided later and ensure details of complaints are available to corporators of that area. 75 Health Posts: The ambitious scheme of upgradation of health infrastructure and establishment of 75 Vande Mataram Health Posts was approved by the House. Mayor expressed happiness that civic administration prepared the rules and finalised the plan within a short time. These posts will be supplement the existing Urban Primary Health Centres and would be set-up in city areas not yet covered by latter and same would be run through NGOs. The idea is to ensure that NMC can concentrate on basic services while NGOs man the health centres thus minimising public expenditure without any compromise on health services. Another important issue that needed urgent approval of House was about ratification of tax structure where no change is proposed under any head. However the highlight of the meeting was direction from Mayor to put an end to reference to Tukaram Mundhe henceforth in House. He was of opinion that Mundhe is now no more with NMC and it makes no sense to continuously rant and its high time city fathers move onto implement the policies they want.