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Journalism of Courage
A day after the General House gave its approval to the agenda of providing 20,000 litres of free water to every family of Chandigarh, Administrator Banwarilal Purohit dashed and turned it down stating that free water is not possible.
Purohit who was addressing the gathering during the launch of ‘Swachhta ki Pustak’ at Punjab Raj Bhawan even questioned the Chandigarh Mayor Kuldeep Kumar Tita from the stage and also asked Chandigarh Municipal Commissioner Anindita Mitra as to why she did not inform the Municipal Corporation (MC) House that these “freebies” were not possible.
Narrating a story, the UT administrator said once a hungry man was promised by a person that he/she would give him food but did not turn up. Another person too promised him sweets and other eatables but did not provide. Picking that reference, Purohit said that on Monday the MC passed an agenda about free water and parking, adding that before speaking and making such promises, the mayor and other officials should have thought as to what announcement they were making — something which is not possible.
“Where will the civic body generate revenue from? An agreement of 15 years has been done, loan has been taken. How will the money be paid back? I am the administrator and if you will do good work, I am with you but not on this one as it is not possible,” the administrator said.
He said even 40,000 litres of free water could not be provided – a quantity that BJP wanted to provide to Chandigarh residents to compete with AAP-Congress’s assurance of 20,000 litres.
While speaking to The Indian Express, Mayor Tita said that he felt really embarrassed when Purohit made this comments from the stage. “I feel really embarrassed the way administrator said this from the stage. He is my father’s age so I couldn’t say anything, but if the House passed a resolution which in any case was to go to him, he could give his observations there and not humiliate me publicly in front of so many people. If he felt anything, he could have told me separately and not in front of everyone. This is not fair what happened today. A mayor is the first citizen of the city and this is not the way you insult him,” Tita added.
On Monday, before the AAP and Congress were to table the agenda of 20,000 litres of free water and free parking, BJP sent a letter to mayor to bring one of 40,000 litres of free water. However, the same was not circulated and the AAP and Congress went ahead to pass their agenda of free water and parking to all the residents of Chandigarh.
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