Pics: Spoorthi Ullal

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JS)

Mangaluru, Jul 31: The council meeting of Mangalore City Corporation was held at Mangala auditorium on Thursday, July 30. Mayor Jecintha Vijay Alfred chaired the meeting.

Two minutes silence was observed to pay tribute to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam who passed away on July 27.

Opposition members alleged that MCC is collecting more taxes from people but the service provided to them is disappointing. Opposition member, Sudhir Shetty said, "Even small houses are asked to pay Rs 480 as garbage management tax. On the other hand Antony waste management is collecting the waste from outskirts and their vehicle was found collecting garbage. The ruling party had promised to reduce this cess. When the corporation is in need of revenue why they have increased only 45 percent on hoardings on corporation property?"

Replying to this works committee president Harinath Jogi said "Previous commissioner had increased the amount on hordings and made a decision not to increase it until 2016. But we called a meeting with these people and amicably decided to increase this amount by 45 percent. If we increase it more, they will go to court and the corporation will lose the revenue what it is receiving now. Garbage cess has been reduced to Rs 240 just the half of the previous amount."

Smart City

The meeting took a resolution to nominate the city for the smart city plan after the city won 96.88 marks in the evaluation process done by state mission director.

Mayor said speaking about teh smart city plan "Score card on smart city was prepared and Mangaluru has got maximum score in the evaluation meeting held in Bengaluru. So we have a high chance of getting a smart city status among 6 cities."

Underground drainage

Opposition members alleged that drainage system in the city is not working properly. They said with blockages everywhere, not all the STP's were working properly. They opposed the 2nd stage of KUDCEMP as there are some works pending in the 1st KUDCEMP. Replyining to this officials replied that there are STP plants in Pachanady, Kavoor, Surathkal, Bajal, Jeppinamogaru, Kudroli. Surathkal STP which is not working due to electrical cable problem will be repaired soon.

On pending works in KUDCEMP 1, commissioner Gokuldas Nayak said "Under the leadership of urban development minister Vinay Kumar Sorake, a meeting was held in Bengaluru in which mayor, deputy mayor and local MLA took part. It was decided that the estimated Rs 19 crore for the pending works will be completed."

Water problem

Many members complained about the water problem in their wards and said that officials always mentioned electricity problem as the reason. One member said that at Katipalla and Krishnapura, pipes are 20 years old and they need to be changed as they have problems every other day.

The officials replied that 'the tender has been called and the pipes would be replaced at the earliest. There were power cut in the pumping stations so there was problem in the water supply.'

Water bills

BJP corporator Vijay Shetty said "People have not received the water bills from past 6 months. It becomes difficult for them to pay, if the bills are sent once in 6 months. Now people are asking for bills. The company which is responsible has collected bills only from 29,000 connections out of 77,000 connections. So there is serious need to take some action on this company."

Replying to this commissioner said "Previous contractor Bellari based company which was not collecting the bills in a proper way. so now tender has been given to some other company and the old company has not surrendered all the data. Once the data transfer is done, bills will be collected promptly."

Footpath

There was a demand for footpath as the corporation has been concentrating only on concreting the roads. They said that people need footpath to walk due to heavy traffic.

Works committee president Deepak Poojari said "As there are only few contractors who can take the work costing more than Rs 1 crore, the work will be divided into small amounts and given."

Many other issues like traffic jam in the city, parking problems were also discussed in the meeting. Purushotham Chitrapura, the deputy mayor was also present in the meeting.