Just a day after a Standing Committee meeting was called, Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta on Wednesday used his special powers to call for another standing committee meeting on Thursday. Civic sources said that special powers have been invoked by a commissioner to call a standing committee meeting after almost 22 years.
Just a day after a Standing Committee meeting was called, Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta on Wednesday used his special powers to call for another standing committee meeting on Thursday. Civic sources said that special powers have been invoked by a commissioner to call a standing committee meeting after almost 22 years.
Mehta has called the meeting fearing that the model code of conduct for civic polls might set in anytime, leaving no scope to approve administrative proposals for at least three months.
Civic sources said that proposals from the civic gardens department, and preventive repairs of roads before monsoon – which was rejected by the standing committee members on Tuesday, will be presented again with required clarifications. Other important proposals that will be taken up for approval pertain to purchase of modular operation theatres for major civic hospitals and periphery hospitals and medical gases.
The chairman of the committee Shiv Sena's Yashodhar Phanse said that there are garden, hospital and road related proposals which are likely to be tabled. "If the comissioner requests for a meeting to be held, I cannot deny it," said Phanse.
The opposition has alleged that the pressure from the ruling Shiv Sena-BJP alliance made the commissioner call for the meeting. "The alliance partners--Shiv Sena and BJP are in a hurry to clear all the important proposals before the code of conduct sets in, and they have called this meeting using the municipal commissioner's chair, " said opposition leader in the BMC Pravin Chheda.
On Wednesday, the civic commissioner Ajoy Mehta is learned to have send a letter to the standing committee chairman Yashodhar Phanse to call for the meeting as there are some proposals which, according to the civic administration, needed to be cleared on priority.
The municipal secretary department of the BMC confirmed the meeting and said that the civic chief can do so under Section 49 (c) of the Mumbai municipal corporation act 1888. This section states that the chairman of the standing committee shall, upon written requisition signed by the commissioner, call a special meeting of the said committee within 24 hours of the transaction of any business which in the opinion of the commissioner cannot be delayed until the next ordinary meeting.
This section was last used by a BMC commissioner way back in the 1994.
Samajwadi Party leader in the BMC Rais Shaikh said he had been told that there were certain urgent proposals which were required to be passed, and therefore the meeting had been called.
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