Mayor Pardeep Chhabra has written a letter to the Chandigarh Administration seeking permission for study tours to different cities within the country. The Mayor has demanded that the councillors in two groups be permitted to visit Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Sikkim, Surat and Mysore. The purpose behind the trip is to study the areas of expertise of different places. The councillors intend to study the sanitation system in Surat, paid parking lots in Bangalore and projects running under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in Hyderabad among other things.The councillors and officials from other cities have come on visits to the city. These include teams from Vishakhapatnam, Vijaywada and other places who studied various ongoing projects in the city.The issue of councillors going on trips has been raised a number of times in the House. The councillors opine that it is important to see how civic bodies in other states function to apply the same for Chandigarh.A proposal for foreign tour by councillors had been rejected earlier by the Administration. While one group of 19 councillors visited Malaysia, Singapore and Bangkok in November last year, the second lot of 14 councillors was not allowed to go. The trip was cancelled after it was claimed that the councillors did not learnt anything substantial from the first trip. Recently, the proposal for a trip by the Fire Committee was rejected by the councillors themselves as it was felt that different committees should not be planning separate trips. The reply on this proposal is awaited.
