The issue of crediting wages of pourakarmikas directly to their bank accounts, handing over smart city works with questionable quality and related issues led to chaos and consumed most of the time during the monthly council meeting of the municipal corporation in Hubballi on Monday.
Raising the issue of passing a resolution in favour of the civic workers, Leader of the Opposition in the House Suvarna Kallakuntla clarified that the party was not opposing the move but pointed out the hardships being caused to the people in the localities as even those workers who were already being paid the wages directly had joined the agitation.
She sought to know what action the municipal corporation had taken against them because they were supposed to attend work already being paid directly and had no reason to join the protest. Her argument evoked strong reaction from the councillors of the ruling party BJP, who tried to justify the action of such workers.
When municipal commissioner Eshwar Ullagaddi said that notices had already been issued and they had not received any answer, she insisted on talking against them to which BJP councillor Thippanna Majjagi objected.
He justified their action and said that there was no need to take action as they had joined protest only to express solidarity with the other workers. His justification was strongly opposed by the Congress councillors, who alleged that they (BJP) were trying to project that Congress was opposing direct payment of wages, which was not right. They rushed to the well of the House and started arguing with the BJP councillors leading to commotion in the House.
The discussion and commotion ended with Mayor Veena Baradwad ruling that all the remaining 799 pourakarmikas should be brought under direct payment system after seeking requisite permission from the State government. However, Congress councillor Arif Bhadrapur suggested modification to the ruling to make provision for recruitment of family members on compassionate grounds in case of death of the pourakarmikas. The BJP councillors too concurred with him and requested the Mayor to modify the ruling accordingly.
The issue of handing over completed works under smart city scheme to the municipal corporation from the Hubbali Dharwad Smart City Limited (HDSCL) also led to heated debate as the councillors cutting across party lines took exception to taking possession of works without proper quality check.
When the municipal commissioner pointed out that the State government had issued order considering the almost completed works as deemed completed and take possession of the same, the councillors strongly objected to it. They insisted that the quality should be properly checked before taking possession or otherwise they should take possession with a condition of holding the HDSCL officials responsible for any poor quality work.
Off the 63 works under smart city scheme, 30 have been declared as deemed completed and only 10 have been actually completed. But there have been complaints about the quality of these works.
The heated debate concluded with the Mayor ruling that the corporation could take possession of the completed works only after joint inspection by officials of both HDMC and HDSCL. And in case of poor quality works, the HDSCL should be held accountable to rectify the same.
Among other issues that were discussed at length were the issue of continued flow of sewage into Unakal lake despite spending ₹15 crore over the same and inclusion of the 51 villages on the outskirts of Hubballi-Dahrwad under Hubballi Dharwad municipal corporation.
