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Bhilai, Apr 04: After suffering a major setback in the Budget Session of Bhilai Municipal Corporation, Mayor Devendra Yadav on Wednesday alleged that the BMC officials in nexus with the Opposition BJP are conspiring against him and his MiC. While addressing media persons, Devendra alleged that this conspiracy is being spun on directions of an influential minister of the state. He asserted that all possible efforts are being made to affect the working of Mayor and the MiC of BMC. Yadav further said that they are striving for development of the city and will expose the ill intentions of the opposition.
He alleged that they are not getting desired support from the state government. Further the development works are being affected in a planned manner by an influential minister just to grab credit. Devendra further alleged that the budget proposal prepared by the MiC was illegally set aside during the General Body Meeting and the proposal prepared by the Commissioner was approved with certain amendments. Mayor alleged that it was a planned conspiracy against them.
He further informed that the MiC had included various objections in regard to the revised budget of previous FY. The funds allocated under some head were spent illegally for other projects without approval of the competent authority. All these irregularities were accomplished by the officials who are enjoying Minister’s protection. All these irregularities would have been exposed and come in the records if the Budget prepared by the MiC would have been approved. Just to safeguard the corrupt officials, the opposition got the Commissioner’s budget approved with certain amendments.
MiC member Laxmipati Raju informed that he had got the proposal approved for construction of Basket Ball Court in Sector 7 with estimated expense of Rs 37 lakh. The tender was also published for the project. But on recommendations of local MLA and Cabinet Minister, the project was dropped and cancelled.
Devendra further alleged that the officials did not provide details of various works even after being repeatedly sought by the MiC. Several files are missing from BMC but the officials hesitate in initiating legal actions. There are about 62 bank accounts of BMC out of which about 20 accounts have very low balance. Mayor stated that maintaining so many accounts was illogical and is being done to accomplish irregularities of spending money of some project over other. In the same way, there are widespread irregularities in the property tax collection from buildings of Bhilai Township. The Bhilai Steel Plant too has not sought any building permission from BMC for its ongoing expansion and modernization project. Mayor further alleged irregularities in Sarovar Dharohar Yojna, telephone bills, etc. Funds of office building maintenance were spent for salary disbursement of computer operators; Swacch Bharat Mission funds were spent for installation of tubular poles at Pushpa Vatika; and reserve corpus was spent for different tasks without approval of MIC, Mayor alleged.
