By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 10 Sep: Just a day after the District Magistrate of Dehradun Savin Bansal was advised by Dharampur MLA and former two-time Mayor of Dehradun, Vinod Chamoli not to interfere in policy matters under the jurisdiction of Nagar Nigam, Bansal today reviewed the sanitation arrangements in Dehradun and shifted the responsibilities of the Nigam officers.
Notwithstanding the advice given by Chamoli, District Magistrate Savin Bansal held an intensive review of the sanitation and cleanliness work in the city being done by the Nagar Nigam and took away the responsibility of monitoring the sanitation work including the garbage collection and pick-up operation of garbage vehicles, dumping of the garbage, fogging and verification of the sanitation staff from the Chief Municipal Health Officer. The Chief Municipal Health Officer has been asked to stick to his basic duties including that of food safety, issue of birth and death certificates, health surveillance and prevention of outbreak of dengue or malaria in urban areas and health risk assessments.
Bansal has now assigned the responsibilities related to sanitation like garbage collection, dumping of garbage and operation of garbage collection vehicles as well as fogging work to the Deputy Municipal Commissioner.
The District Magistrate is monitoring the sanitation arrangements done by the Municipal Corporation and, just two days ago, he had conducted a surprise inspection of the Nagar Nigam. During the meeting, he had expressed deep displeasure over the poor system found in garbage collection and monitoring of sanitation work in the city. He had also asked the Nagar Nigam administration to submit a plan for construction of mechanised parking facility in Nagar Nigam premises which had attracted severe criticism from ex-Mayor and current MLA, Dharampur, Vinod Chamoli, who had reminded him that Nagar Nigam building is a heritage property which should not be touched. Chamoli had also reminded him that the policy decisions related to the Nigam affairs fall under the jurisdiction of Nagar Nigam Board not under the district administration and, hence, the DM should stay away from interfering in policy decisions that fall under the domain of Nagar Nigam which is an autonomous and elected body.
The sanitation arrangements in the city were, since the election of the first Nagar Nigam Board in 2003, been monitored by the Municipal Health Officer, before the creation of the post of Chief Municipal Health Officer, who took over the monitoring of the sanitation arrangements in the city after the post was created.
Now, following the orders issued by DM Savin Bansal, these responsibilities have been handed over to the Deputy Municipal Commissioner. Some officials in the Nigam claimed that sanitation is the basic responsibility of Deputy Municipal Commissioner only though the CMHO was looking after this responsibility for so many years. The DM had expressed displeasure over the procedure adopted for verification of works of Swachhata Samitis, garbage collection vehicles and award of garbage collection contract to various companies. The DM has served a 45-day ultimatum to the companies given contracts for garbage collection to improve their services or face strict action.
