Officials care a hoot about mayor

Officials care a hoot about mayor
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Officials of Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) couldn’t care less for politicians even when it happens to be the mayor. Just one of the officials turned up, on Friday, to a meeting called by mayor’s committee set up to examine hoarding ban in the city.

Mayor Mumtaz Begum had issued a circular on Wednesday about the scheduled meeting which was to be attended by deputy mayor M Laxminarayana, ruling party leader H Ravindra and other members. She had marked copies for officials, including the commissioner and zonal joint commissioners.

However, except joint commissioner (East) N Jayaram, no official came and the meeting had to be postponed. Sources told this this website's newspaper that the mayor’s office would write to the commissioner to take action on errant officials.

The civic budget had proposed a total ban on hoardings and Begum had constituted a committee to look into the matter. She had even inspected the hoardings that violated rules.

The government is about to notify a new set of rules on outdoor advertisements, and the taxation and finance committee had promised to ban all hoardings. Meanwhile hoarding contractors flout all norms and go scot-free.

Further, another committee headed by the mayor on reintroduction of pay and park system in the city also met with the same fate.

Members of the committee, including leader of the ruling party H Ravindra, deputy mayor M Laxminarayana and BJP leader A H Basavaraju could not conduct a meeting as the officials were elsewhere.