NAGPUR: Despite civic chief Radhakrishnan B directing all ten zones to identify and remove wrongly coloured infrastructure material — owned by the Municipal Corporation (NMC) — five days ago, the public works department of Hanuman Nagar Zone have got 48 benches painted in BJP party colours. They are being fixed in ward No. 29 on Tuesday.
After TOI sought out executive engineer Krushna Kumar Hedau, he asked for the benches to be repainted in permitted colours.
On February 10, TOI reported that corporator Sunil Hiranwar had erected direction signboards which had BJP colours in the background. This was in violation of NMC norms. All boards were prepared and fixed on footpaths using NMC funds.
On the same day, Radhakrishnan had asked all zones to identify such infrastructure materials, remove and reinstall them.
Among other violations reported by TOI, four BJP corporators had used party colours on benches and barricades and a BSP corporator had displayed the party’s name, symbol and used the outfit’s colours. BJP-coloured boards were also found in the ward of another corporator.
A reader clicked a picture of a vehicle transporting BJP-coloured benches in South Nagpur and shared it with TOI. It’s learnt that 48 benches costing around Rs 6 lakh were ordered by engineers of Hanuman Nagar Zone following a demand made by BJP corporator Leela Hattibed. The engineers also installed five wrongly coloured benches in residential localities.
Hedau informed that the contractor has been asked to repaint all benches in sky blue colour at his own cost. “If more such benches are spotted, they too will be repainted,” he said.
Hattibed said that benches ordered by her have not been delivered yet.
The NMC is yet to remove BJP-coloured barricades installed in ward No. 17 and 34. Some more barricades with the name of another BJP corporator Mangala Khekre were spotted on Tuesday.
The wrongly coloured direction signboards installed by corporators Mamta Sahare (BSP), Vijay Chutele and benches erected by Nishant Gandhi, Dharmapal Meshram and barricades by Chutele and Mankar too have not been removed.
