Councillors’ nod to releasing payment to Tata firm

Ludhiana: In an all-party meeting held here on Tuesday, councillors have given the sanction for releasing the payment to Tata company. While in the last meeting the councillors from all parties had showed dissatisfaction over the working of the company and had requested mayor Balkar Sandhu to terminate the contract with the firm, on Tuesday, they all showed satisfaction with the work and claimed that they should clear the payment to the firm.
The mayor was heading the meeting and asked the councillors about the satisfaction over the working of company. The councillors claimed that there was improvement in the working of the company and if they terminated the contract at this moment then a legal battle would eat up the project and residents would suffer. Senior deputy mayor Shyam Sunder Malhotra while confirming the same said, “The councillors have shown satisfaction over the working of the company, so in the all-party meeting we decided to clear the payment.”
The councillors also suggested that for non-functional streetlights penalty should be imposed. However, Congress councillor Mamta Ashu raised suspicion of a scam in this project. She said in one of the bills one ward, which actually falls under zone D has been shown in zone B. She said the officials had signed the bills without checking this and demanded action against the responsible officials.
In the meeting the councillors requested the mayor to increase the councillor quota amount but he expressed helplessness. The councillors demanded that half amount of the MLA quota should be added to the councillors’ quota. To this the mayor said he would put up this matter in the MC general house meeting.