Mohali sanitation woes: Facing residents’ ire, MC allots contracts to maintain parks

Mohali Municipal Corporation (MC) allotted the work of maintaining parks in the city to contractors, on Saturday. The work will start within the next two days. Residents in many areas have been criticising the civic body for not allotting the work, and that the parks have been in a poor condition for many months.

The MC has around 600 parks under its jurisdiction in the city. Out of these, around 100 are being maintained by the Resident Welfare Associations (RWA) in different areas. The parks are in shambles for the past four months due to delay in allotting the work to the contractors to maintain them. If the MC officials are to be believed, the delay happened due to the imposition of the model code of conduct in the state ahead of the Assembly elections held earlier this year. An officer said that due to the delay in the allotment of work, there were many complaints from residents about the poor condition of parks.

An officer added that in many parks, there was no cleanliness at all which had added to the woes of residents. Deputy mayor Kuljeet Singh Bedi told The Indian Express that the work orders worth around Rs 3 crore had been allotted to the contractor and the sanitation work will start within the next two days.

Bedi said there has been a backlog of work as contracts were not given out, adding that action will now be taken in case of irregularities. The opposition had been targeting the ruling dispensation in the MC for the lack of sanitation in the city. The opposition had also alleged that such a situation had never arisen in the past, where the parks were in such a bad state. Opposition councillor Sukhdev Singh Patwari said that the present dispensation has made a mockery of sanitation in the city, adding that parks are in bad shape and the cleanliness of roads is also poor.