Malik Sameed
The Srinagar Municipal Corporation efficiency is under scanner from all ends .With the taking of Dr Shafqat Khan as new Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC). Sometime back the hopes were raised but his working has proven more inefficient as amply proved by unclean, drainageless Srinagar city.
Plus SMC is in news for all the wrong reasons.First and foremost it has lost lakhs of rupees in revenue because it failed to allot various parking lots to bidders in the city, an audit report said.
SMC Analysts and watchers state that Dr Shafqat Khan as SMC commissioner has taken rot and inefficiency to new heights as the tainted officials are given prime posting and even those caught red handedly are showered accolades rather than punishment .
Pertinently, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s report said the SMC had not allotted the slots to the highest bidder.
The CAG cited the example of Pratap Park parking slot the tenders for which were issued for the 2013-14 at a minimum reserve price of Rs 4 lakh.
Such is inefficiency on part of SMC that although a bidder had offered Rs 4.6 lakh, the corporation did not allot the space saying “it had no received handsome bids”. While as Between July 2013 and April 2015, the SMC collected only Rs 69,000 in parking fee from the same slot.
The SMC inefficiency does not end here .Citing another glaring example of mismanagement of funds post the floods, the CAG said the government provided Rs 2.14 crore under the SDRF to the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) for collection and disposal of garbage and carcasses and the SMC incurred an expenditure of Rs 1.37 crore.
Even in implementation of simple rehabilitation projects SMC has failed .According to the report, for rehabilitation of the urban poor families, a proposal for construction of 622 dwelling units at four different locations—Sumerbugh, Behrar, Tibetan Colony and Waganpora along with allied works such as water supply, sewerage system, road connectivity, drainage system, land acquisition, development of land and community toilets under BSUP under JNNURM was approved by the Gol for implementation by the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC).
As a matter of fact, miserable sanitation, lack of cleanness , resurfacing of polythene represent the added failures of SMC.
Undoubtedly, the new SMC commissioner Shafqat too has failed to lift the image of SMC.