Officials, councillors lock horns

CHANDIGARH: The internal tussle between the Chandigarh municipal corporation councillors and officials has now come out in the open as 18 MC officials on Wednesday alleged that public representatives are targeting officers for their vested interest
In a detailed complaint to the municipal commissioner Roshan Sunkaria, officials said the behaviour and conduct of councillors has not been appropriate during last few meetings, adding that the councillors deliberately tried to malign the image of officials.Municipal commissioner has forwarded the complaint to home secretary-cum-local bodies secretary Ram Niwas for his consideration.
The complaint also mentions that during the last general house meeting (January 28), MC additional commissioner-cum-secretary Lalit Siwach was unnecessarily taken to the task for no reason. The officers have been performing their duties to the best of their abilities without any malafide intentions. The persistent tirade against the officials has led them to seek premature repatriation and officers are not keen to join the MC assignments now, the complaint noted.The officers requested MC commissioner to check such attempts and councillors be made to adhere to the code of procedure for proceedings of the House. They also resented the unparliamentarily language used by councillors and threatened that such behaviour shall not be tolerated in future. If it happens again they will be forced to stage a walk out in future, the complainants said.
Municipal commissioner Roshan Sunkaria said, 'I have got the copy of the complaint and sent it to the UT home secretary for his consideration.'
The complainants include additional commissioner TPS Phoolka, additional commissioner-cum-secretary Lalit Siwach, joint commissioner Kamlesh Kumar, chief engineer SS Bida, SE (PH) RK Goyal, SE (B&R) Mukesh Anand, medical officer of health Dr G Diwan, law officer Ashok Gautam and 10 executive engineers (XENs) among others.
It may be recalled that councillors of the opposition parties targeted additional commissioner-cum-secretary Lalit Siwach in a meeting on on January 28. A few months back, Congress councillor Devinder Singh Babla had targeted joint commissioner Kamlesh Kumar who had made a complaint to home secretary against Babla but the matter was sorted out later.