Cash-strapped Municipal Corporation plans study tour for councillors

The Municipal Corporation has planned a study tour. However, this proposed visit seems unnecessary given the acute financial crisis in the civic body, which is struggling to release the salaries of its employees on time.

The councillors are expected to leave for the tour by the end of this month. Surat, New Mumbai, Guwahati and Kerala are on the itinerary. Mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor today held a meeting with five councillors from different political parties in his office to decide on the tour.

The MC has set aside Rs 50 lakh budget for study tour this fiscal. The civic body organises tours of popular locations every year in the name of studying various projects in those cities. Most of the previous tours had failed to serve the purpose and attracted criticism for wasting public money.

Past tours

• 2023: Councillors and officers visit the solid waste management plants in North and South Goa
• 2022: 21 councillors and around three officials visit a biomethanation plant in Indore’s and NEERI in Nagpur’s, which cost the MC ~14 lakh
• 2019: Five-day tour of Leh held to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Pathar Sahib (~10 lakh)
• 2017: A visit by 32 councillors, officers to Mumbai, Pune and Visakhapatnam to study sanitation and water supply (~18 lakh)
• 2014: Nine-day tour undertaken by a delegation of 39 persons, including 19 councillors and their kin, to Chennai, Port Blair and Kolkata to study projects (~28.50 lakh)
• 2013: Six councillors and three officers visit Delhi to study water supply. Also, the then Mayor, commissioner and XEN visit Israel at a cost of ~7 lakh
• 2010: 14 councillors and two officials visit Kolkata and Gangtok to study roads, horticulture, etc (~16 lakh)
• 2007: 18 councillors and two officials visit Singapore and Bangkok (Rs 15 lakh)

After two BJP Mayors Sarbjit Kaur and Anup Gupta, the incumbent AAP Mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor is continuing with this annual study tour of councillors.

Last year, a delegation of councillors and officers, led by Mayor Anup Gupta, Municipal Commissioner Anindita Mitra, visited the solid waste management plants situated in North and South Goa. In a first, residents of Dadu Majra were also made part of the tour. During the tenure of former mayor Sarbjit Kaur in 2022, the MC had planned a tour of Goa and Mumbai, but then UT Administrator and Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit turned down the proposal and changed the locations to Indore and Nagpur.

Councillors had taken their families along on one such tour. Some pictures of them merrymaking at famous tourist spots had gone viral. Councillors had claimed they visited those sites after the scheduled tour of the project sites during the day.

Doubts have been raised time and again over the utility and productivity of such study tours. Residents even ask councillors to present a “utilisation” report after each study tour and share what projects have been implemented in the city based on knowledge gained after visiting projects in other cities.

Slamming the MC on the proposed tour, Baljinder Singh Bittu, chairman, Federation of Sectors Welfare Association Chandigarh, said, “What kind of study is this? Have they been able to clear the dumping ground, remove illegal street vendors or resolve the parking issue in the past 10 years? They have turned City Beautiful into a rehri-fadhi spot. Panckhula and Mohali have become better than UT. They should name it an excursion tour instead of a study tour.”

Talking to Chandigarh Tribune, Mayor Kuldeep Kumar said, “We are exploring different cities, which have fared well in Swachhata ranking, to learn about projects implemented there. Nothing has been finalised yet. These tours are purely to study projects or new initiatives taken in other cities and implement these here. It is not at all some excursion tour.”