Morbi Bridge collapse: Municipality calls for special meet as govt notice deadline on Feb 16

The state government’s latest letter warned that if the municipality didn’t respond by February 16, the government will assume that the civic body doesn’t want to make any submission and the government will take a unilateral decision.

Following this, Parmar issued a circular which read, “All the councillors of the Morbi Municipality are hereby intimated that a special general meeting of Morbi Municipality will be convened at Morbi Municipality office at 10:30 AM on Thursday, date 15/02/2023,”.

Parmar circulated the agenda of the meeting just hours after the urban development and urban housing (UD&UHD) department department of the state government sent the letter to Morbi municipality late on Monday.

Observing that in the aftermath of the collapse of Jhulto Pul suspension bridge, the Morbi municipality had “failed to perform its duties” and that its elected wing was found to be “incompetent of discharging its primary duties,” the UD&UHD had on January 18 served a show-cause notice on Morbi municipality. The notice had asked the municipality show reasons, in the form of a general board resolution, as to why it should not be dissolved. The government had given the municipality time till January 25.

In response to the show-cause notice, the general board of the Morbi municipality had on January 23, passed a resolution stating the documents, records and literature needed for responding to the show-cause notice had been seized by the special investigation team (SIT) formed by the government to probe the Jhulto Pul
bridge collapse.
The January 23 resolution requested the state government “return” documents, records and literature at the earliest so that the civic body can respond to the notice while also appealing to the state government not to take final decision in the smatter pending the municipality’s response.

After the municipality’s request, a deputy secretary in the UD&UHD had, on February 3, sent copies of the primary report submitted by the SIT to the government and Section 263 of the Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963.

“Your are requested to submit your response to the show-cause notice without any delay,” the UD&UHD deputy secretary had wrote in his letter.

However, the municipality apparently didn’t move, even as Jayanti Ghataliya, a BJP councillor from Ward No.2 of Morbi municipality, filed an affidavit with the UD&UHD through his lawyer on February 7.

However, sources said that the UD&UHD rejected that submission as it was not in the form of a resolution of municipality.

Even after the councillor’s submission, as no formal response was received from the municipality president, UD & UHD sent a reminder on February 13, fixing February 16 as the deadline for the civic body to send in its response.

While Parmar was not available for a comment, Jayrajsinh Jadeja, vice-president of Morbi municipality said the civic body will comply with the latest government directive.

“The February 3 letter had asked the municipality to send in its ‘without any delay’. We were not given any date to do so. But now that the government has given us the date of February 16, we will send our response in the form of a general board resolution before that deadline,” Jadeja told The Indian Express, adding, “The common view of the councillors is that the municipality is not at fault… It was Oreva Group’s duty to come to the municipality to obtain necessary approvals for the bridge before it was thrown open to visitors post repair.”