Contractor ceases to maintain Mohali parks, councillors approach mayor

Mohali: The contractor outsourced to keep the Mohali parks clean has ceased to maintain them from past one month.

Fumed over the fact, the councillors stormed the mayor and MC commissioner over the issue and demanded immediate remedial action to prevent the residents from facing the inconvenience.

The issue was discussed in the recent municipal corporation (MC) house meeting where the councillors complained about the poor condition of the parks with filth lying, and stray dogs and cattle invading them.

Councillors said despite the fact that Mohali MC has handed over the maintenance of the parks to a private company, the cleanliness situation is still grim. There has been no progress as the broken swings and benches continue to give a sorry picture.

It must be mentioned here that the MC had outsourced the maintenance works for Rs 7 crore annually. Councillors said from the past 30 days there has been no cleaning of the parks and the contractor said that since the government has reduced his number of sweepers to half, the parks will be cleaned once in a month. However, according to the agenda passed by the house, the parks should be clean parks three to four times a month.

Following complaints by the councillors against the company, outsourced to maintain 550 parks in Mohali, the mayor has ordered for issuing show cause notice to the company which would now have to explain the deficiency in performing its duty.

Councillor Sukhdev Singh Patwari said, "Stray dogs have become a pain in the neck for the Mohali residents. Dogs are being seen in every nook and corner of the city. Dogs have been littering the community parks keeping the residents away from enjoying the facility."

Irked by the poor maintenance of the parks, residents of Phase VII from house number 1715 to 1764 alleged that the park in their community is good for nothing.

According to them, MC makes absolutely no efforts to maintain the park. On top of this, the stray dogs don the parks and make them unusable opined residents. J S Bajaj, a resident of the same area said, "Contractors are not maintaining the parks as per the agreement with the Mohali MC. Provision of civic facilities in the area is the primary duty of the elected councillors. But, they are not doing their job. It seems that they do not deserve the monthly remuneration,"

Locked and stinking toilets

Locked and stinking public toilets in Mohali is another major factor which has led to the failure in the Swachh Survekshan. Raising the issue, the councillors said that at many places the public toilets are seen locked. Most of such locked toilets are in public parks. In one such instance, toilet in a park in Phase XI opposite gurdwara is locked since ages. The toilets at Mohali railway station are also locked and people are forced to relieve themselves in the open. Various busy markets of Mohali do have operational toilets, but the places emit foul smell. The toilet in Silvy park emits unbearable foul smell which discourages visitors to use it.