Cong, MNS upset over nod for cleaning of nullahs

MUMBAI: Congress and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS corporators walked out of the civic standing committee meeting on Thursday after the Rs 131 crore nullah cleaning proposal was passed despite it being opposed.
Work on the nullahs cleaning is proposed to is said to begin from April 21 and will go on up to June 10. The Rs 131 crore proposal is more than the last year's proposal for Rs 97 crore.
Calling it farcical, Rajhans Singh, Opposition leader from the Congress, alleged that the civic body officials were hand-in-glove with the contractors.''Last year, those contractors who were fined have been reappointed. Why were they not blacklisted? What guarantee do we have that they will finish the work before June?" asked Singh.
MNS leader Mangesh Sangle said, "Why isn't the cleaning work done all year roundand only done at the last minute? The BMC is robbing the public with such an exorbitant proposal." said Mangesh Sangle, MNS leader.
Assem Gupta, additional municipal commissioner said that the contractors hadn't committed that big an offence to blacklist them.
"However, this time we have increased the penalty 10 times. We give them a target to remove silt and if their work is incomplete we blacklist them,"said Gupta.
Gupta said that clean-up marshals will ensure that garbage isn't littered in nallahs during monsoon.