Ignoring the rules, civic body gave 60 city buses for rally to BJP

Nagpur: In what can also be called a clear violation of rules, the Municipal Transport Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation has made available up to 60 city buses for a political rally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, due to which the city bus service during the festive season has been badly affected.

Not only this, Bharatiya Janata Party workers have also hoisted their party’s flag on all these buses. Which is also completely against the rules. The pictures of the city buses with this Bharatiya Janata Party flag have become very viral on social media on Wednesday.

Additional Municipal Commissioner whose name is Deepak Kumar Meena. He has stated that there is a provision to rent out city buses for non-political programs. Administrative Officer Ravindra Pagey and City Transport Manager Ravindra Bhelawe have made available about 60 city buses after collecting the fare. Ideally, city buses cannot be provided for any kind of political event at all. I have issued show cause notices to both these officers and have also ordered further investigation.

RBI Square to Zilla Parishad

Clarifying his stand, Ravindra Pagey has stated that Bharatiya Janata Party councilor whose name is Dharampal Meshram, who is also the chairman of the legal advisory committee. He had submitted an application for the demand of these buses. So after we collected the fee, it was completely cleared. The buses were dispatched at 9.30 am in the morning and had returned by 3 pm in the afternoon.

All these buses were dropped from the depot and sent to various places in the city to bring Bharatiya Janata Party workers. Since then a rally was also taken out from RBI Square to Zilla Parishad in protest against the state government.

Ravindra Pagey has also said that further necessary action will be taken after the notice against the applicant who has completely violated the rules by showing the political flag on these city buses.

Meena also said that the applicant had not mentioned the purpose of hiring all these buses at all. All this will come out in the inquiry and in the details.

Taking into account the prolonged covid-induced lockdown and the complete relaxation since the festive season, Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B, several days ago, increased the number of these city buses in operation to 361. There is also a rule in NMC that city buses cannot be provided for any other purpose at all if the scheduling is 100%.

Jitendra ‘Bunty’ Kukde City Transport Committee chairman did not respond to this.

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