Previous ‘study tour’ reports have not been tabled or junked: AAP

Kumar, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the UT civic body, stated that the civic body commissioner and the chief engineer have already visited and seen the Goa and Mumbai waste plant.

“The commissioner and chief engineer — the main executors of any project —have already visited the Goa and Mumbai waste plants. Why couldn’t a report of their learnings be put up in the House. That report is sufficient for all of us to know the waste management process there in Goa and Mumbai. Instead of 35 people and officials going to use the taxpayer’s money to undertake the same tour all over again, that report, if put up, would have sufficed,” AAP leader Kumar said.

The commissioner and chief engineer had seen and visited both the plants in June and July this year. The AAP leader added that all the BJP and Congress councillors had given a plea that they want to go to Goa and learn something about the waste management process there. “We have already seen how the previous learnings, where elected representatives went to different cities and even countries abroad to study waste managements, have been implemented,” he said.

“When the previous learnings have not been implemented, then do you think it can be called a ‘study’ tour. It is a junket, a leisure trip,” AAP councillor said.

He added that crores of rupees have already been spent on study tours in the past with none of the learnings from them being implemented. “If really extraordinary work was being done at these places, one representative from each party could have gone. What is the need of 35 people visiting. The expenditure on their flight, their stay, food and local transportation will be a massive wastage of funds.”

The councillors of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation had on Tuesday not just approved a study trip to Goa to study the waste management there, but had also added Mumbai to the itinerary. This decision was taken at the civic body’s general house meeting.

As voting was done for approval of this agenda, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillors had opposed the trip while BJP and Congress members voted in favour of it. Since the number of votes in favour of the trip were 21 out of 35, the agenda and the trip was approved.

Prodded about if any report on their visit to Mumbai and Goa plants in July had been put up by the civic body chief engineer, commissioner Anindita Mitra said, “The chief engineer has put his learnings in the draft RFP to be presented before the committee for waste management constituted by the Governor under the chairmanship of the Adviser.”

WHERE ARE REPORTS OF PREVIOUS TOURS?

In the past several ‘study’ tours have been undertaken by the public representatives, but the reports of such tours have either not been submitted or junked after submission. As councillors of the UT continued their study tours in various states of India and abroad, Chandigarh slipped to the 66th position on the Swachh survey in a matter of few years.

In 2017, the councillors and officials of the civic body had gone on a trip to Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam and Pune in three different groups from April 17 to 22.

The trips were undertaken to study sanitation and water supply and came at a cost of Rs 20 lakh. But, none of things “learnt” from these trips were implemented in the city.

After drawing flak for not filing a report, a report was prepared and tabled much later after convening a special House meeting. It was discussed that a smart e-learning school should be established in Chandigarh on the lines of the one in Pune.The smart e-learning school never saw the light of the day in Chandigarh.

In 2018, another study tour was undertaken to six cities — Indore, Bhopal, Vijayawada in Hyderabad, Navi Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam and Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh — for around Rs 30 lakh. Councillors stated that they wanted to study solid waste management, water supply and various other topics during their tour. However, none of the learnings from that trip was implemented and Chandigarh’s cleanliness worsened further after that.