MC councillors during a study tour to Port Blair. Express ArchivesWHILE THE Chandigarh Municipal Corporation claims to be in a deep financial crisis, government funds which were allocated for Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary are being used to fund a four-day visit to Leh of 26 people — 24 councillors and two officers — who are going to pay obeisance at gurdwara there on Tuesday.
Chandigarh Newsline takes a look at where the public money is wastefully spent by the civic body. Study tours (or junkets?) top the list. In the last decade, the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has spent a whopping over Rs 2.20 crore on these study tours, which include a stay in the five star hotels.
The study tours appear to be ‘all play no work’ because not a single study brought back home was implemented. The same old concept — waste management, waste supply system — has been studied over a dozen times. But no change is visible in the city.
Three councillors and three officers went to Germany, Austria and Italy to study garbage processing plant in the year 2006. Then, in 2007, a tour to Singapore and Bangkok was made by 18 councillors and two officials. It had cost Rs 15,10,560 to the exchequer. The one to Kolkata and Gangtok in 2010 cost Rs 16,07,791. The money was spent on 14 councillors and two officials. The councillors had gone to study roads, horticulture, sanitation, water supply and garbage disposal in the hill station so that things can be improved in the city. But nothing came of it.
The most expensive study tour was organised in 2014 to Chennai, Port Blair and Kolkata which cost the exchequer Rs 28.50 lakh. With about 39 people, including 19 councillors, their family members and UT and MC officials, a trip was made to study various projects like that of sanitation. The councillors during their nine-day tour also visited islands, including Havelok, Ross and Coral, which were not on the itinerary.
In 2015, the then MC commissioner Bhawna Garg and then joint commissioner Rajeev Gupta visited Coimbatore to study door-to-door garbage collection, but it did not yield any result. In 2016, then Mayor Arun Sood, former MC Commissioner B Purshartha and then medical officer health Dr Parminder Bhatti too visited Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh to study the same.
In 2017, 32 councillors and officers in three different groups went to Mumbai, Pune and Visakhapatnam and the visit cost Rs 18 lakh. The trips were meant to study sanitation and improve water supply.
Only to study water supply, trips were made twice in 2013. In one trip, six councillors and three officers visited Delhi to study the latest technology for tertiary treated water and in the month of November, the then mayor Subhash Chawla, then commissioner VP Singh and then executive engineer Rajesh Bansal visited Israel to study improving water supply system and an amount of Rs 7 lakh was spent.
Former BJP councillor Satinder Singh said that these study tours are a complete wastage of money and they should not be undertaken. “I never went on tours during my tenure as I was against them completely. I feel this is a wastage of public money. I don’t know how even their conscience allows this. You don’t have funds for the city but undertaking these trips clearly suggests that they are for your personal use,” he said. He added, “And I have seen that they never do any homework before going.”
Reacting to these trips, a former councillor on the condition of anonymity said that these trips should be accounted for. “At least there should be someone in the administration who keeps a check on such wasteful expenditure. This is all public money and if you are allowing it to be wasted then you are equally responsible,” the former councillor said.
How many road stretches could be repaired in this amount?
With an amount of Rs 10 lakh, which is being spent on the Leh trip, a potholed stretch of at least 20 kilometres could not have given any bumpy ride to commuters who have been suffering daily because the MC says they have no funds. Experts at the NITTTR said that proper patchwork at a stretch of 20 kilometres can be carried out with this amount.
With the total amount of Rs 2.20 crore, which is spent on study tours, about 200 kilometres of roads could have seen the patchwork, if we go just by the basic seal coat used to fill the potholes. Bituminous bags called ready mix are used which can make the stretch commutable for one year.
As far as recarpeting is concerned, experts at NITTTR say that with Rs 15 lakh per kilometre, that too a two-lane road with 30 mm concrete, best quality layer can be recarpeted.
Objection by CAG, but who cares?
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India of 2016-17 found irregularities in the conduct of study tours. The report had stated that study tours are conducted to bring about improvement in the existing infrastructure and facilities for the betterment of citizens or for implementing a new project of public interest and a report has to be submitted within 10 days but in the case of the Chandigarh MC, reports were not submitted even after three months and neither any improvement was made in the existing facilities nor any new project was started. It was specified that it resulted in Chandigarh “lagging behind far back in the race of the cleanest city of India”. The expenditure made on these study tours was termed “unfruitful”.
