Uproar over waterlogging at Cuttack Municipal Corporation meet

CUTTACK: Uproar marked the 12th council meeting of Cuttack Municipal Corporation(CMC) on Wednesday with opposition Congress and BJP corporators raising questions over several issues including the waterlogging problem recently faced by the city’s residents.

Congress corporators Sanstosh Bhol and Subhasish Patnaik showed video clips of areas in the city that were waterlogged after a brief spell of rain while blaming the inefficiency of the three outsourcing agencies entrusted with carrying out drain desilting work. After a threadbare discussion on the issue, it came to fore that the agencies are unaware of the scope of the work assigned to them. It was decided that the civic body’s engineering section would carry out the desilting of the drains by floating tender.

BJP corporator Gagan Ojha alleged manpower service provider agency Jagannath Prasad Nursery for not paying its workers regularly even as it was being paid by the CMC on a monthly basis. Several corporators came out in support of Ojha and demanded termination of the agency’s contract. Ojha also asked the civic body to make necessary arrangements for ‘jal chhatra’ as almost all cold water kiosks are lying defunct in the city.

CMC commissioner Nikhil Pavan Kalyan said steps will be taken as per the decision of the council. However, he said termination of the agency’s contract at this time would hamper necessary works as it would take some time to float fresh tender. Mayor Subhas Singh suggested serving one month notice to the agency before floating a fresh tender.  

Kalyan said the civic body would conduct SEBC survey from May 1 to 27 by holding camps at schools, anganwadis and ward offices. Beneficiaries would have to submit a self-declaration form to be counted under the SEBC category.