The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to stick to its earlier stand on the Campa Cola issue. The civic body on Wednesday said it has no order to find a solution in connection with the issue.
In the standing committee meeting on Wednesday, additional municipal commissioner Mohan Adtani said the Supreme Court (SC) has not directed the BMC to find a middle way in connection with the row. Adtani made the statement after BJP's group leader Manoj Kotak raised the issue during the meeting.
Adtani's statement received severe criticism from the corporators, including those from the opposition Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP). "It is a clear lie, against what chief minister Prithviraj Chavan promised during the last winter session," said SP's group leader Rais Shaikh.
Kotak told reporters later that the stand taken by the municipal administration is not in line with the assurance of Chavan. "The CM had assured that the government will look into the issue and try to find a solution to it. However, municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte has not taken any action on this as yet. The BMC is only interested in demolishing the flats," he said.
Standing committee chairman Yashodhar Phanase, however, doubted if Chavan mislead the residents by promising to look into the matter. "It is unlikely that the municipal commissioner will not follow the order of the CM. If at all the CM was serious about the issue, then he should have opted for issuing an ordinance to save the residents. If the municipal administration says there is no order to figure out a solution to the problem, then it means Chavan lied during the assembly session," Phanase said.
Meanwhile, members of the improvement committee sought to know why the BMC did not act on a Bombay high court order passed in the 1990s. "According to my knowledge, the HC had asked BMC to raze the illegal portions between 1993 and 1995. Why did the BMC not act in this connection? Had the BMC followed the court order, the matter would have been dealt with long back and residents need not suffer for long," Shiv Sena corporator Surendra Baghalkar said.
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