BMC Commissioner and administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal told The Indian Express that the proposal came from the guardian minister’s office requesting a cabin at the civic body HQ.
In an unprecedented move, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has allotted an office to Mumbai’s guardian minister inside the BMC headquarters building.
BMC Commissioner and administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal told The Indian Express that the proposal came from the guardian minister’s office requesting a cabin at the civic body HQ.
With no elected BMC representatives currently in place since the last body’s term ended in March 2022, the civic polls are still pending. The BMC is under an administrator’s rule.
The new office is located on the second floor near the commissioner’s cabin. Earlier, this space housed the civic education committee members.
On Friday, suburban Mumbai’s guardian minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha, along with former BJP corporators, took charge of the new office. Lodha said it will be used to address public grievances.
“As a guardian minister I have travelled to all the 15 different wards in suburban Mumbai and addressed more than 15 thousand problems related to the citizens, out of which around 3,000 problems were solved on the spot. This eventually highlighted the need to have a centrally located office which will help us to address the people’s problem,” Lodha reporters on Friday.
Chahal told Express, “The state government has launched a ‘Government at your doorstep’ campaign in which the ministers are visiting their constituencies and interacting with people. I received an application from the guardian minister’s office to allot a cabin in the civic headquarters so that citizens can visit them. Unlike Mantralaya, BMC is accessible for all and all the civic officials would also be in the same building. Based on this request, an office was allotted for the guardian minister’s post and not to any person or political leader, specifically.”
DM Sukhtankar, who was the first administrator of BMC between April and November in 1984, told Express, “Normally, MLAs don’t have any direct role to play in the administration, but as long as rationality is concerned an office must be allotted to any representative in the civic headquarters, only if that person is rendering service to the civic body,”
However, opposition leaders criticised the move. UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray said all Mumbai MLAs, irrespective of party, should get cabins in BMC.
“We have seen that all the office bearers from BJP are now sitting in the newly allotted cabin. The municipal commissioner has banned political parties from having their offices in BMC, but this is ongoing. The commissioner needs to understand that a change in government will happen soon and then he will be held responsible,” Aaditya told Express on Friday.
Source : The Indian Express
