MC prepares for state foundation day

Dehradun, October 22 : The Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) will be taking active part in Uttarakhand Foundation Day celebrations this year.

The corporation has charted out three-day proceedings, which was approved at the Dehradun Municipal Corporation Board meeting held yesterday for the foundation day falling on November 9. The DMC intends to organise a national-level cultural festival in Dehradun as part of promotion of the cultural arts of the state aimed to provide an identity to the DMC in the national cultural scenario.

Apart from it, the board meeting at length discussed issues linked to money spent on purchase of tools and equipment used for civic sanitation work since the assumption of office by the present DMC board. Presiding over the meet, Mayor Vinod Chamoli pulled up DMC health officials for being complacent in undertaking works ordered in the earlier board meetings.

He further directed the mukhya nagar adhikari to ensure that the physical verification of information provided under the RTI regarding purchases made of tools and materials used for civic sanitation work was conducted within 15 days and its report presented to the board.

Regarding the anomalies in resources available compared to their use for civic sanitation by DMC staff, the Mayor said there was a need to improve the working of divisional supervisors who had remained notorious for providing misinformation to either the DMC administration or councillors, compromising on work and not making proper use of available human and mechanical resources.

Responding to allegations of lack of parity in the amount of funds spent on development works in different wards, Mayor Vinod Chamoli said the previous board had set incorrect practices of treating the fund available to the DMC board. "Such practices would not be allowed in the present board as the public money would not be allowed to become an object of misuse," he said.

On problems of stray dogs and simians, the Mayor informed them that as per the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, the stray dogs could neither be killed by the municipal body nor at once be relocated to another site. On information provided by doctors in the Doon Hospital, the Mayor said out of the total cases of dog-biting humans recorded in hospital, 60 per cent were bitten by pet dogs, whereas mere 40 per cent were bitten by stray dogs.