Karnataka HC expresses displeasure over compliance report on illegal hoardings, calls it “eye-wash”
Doubts over due process in selecting supplier ‘Arvind Mills’ for cotton cloth
BENGALURU:
In a time of coronavirus, BBMP has shown itself to be long on ideas and woefully short on implementation. It could not get its Covid act together over 54 days of the earlier nationwide lockdown, but now has the bright idea of putting up hoardings and banners at various locations in the city to ‘educate’ people about the dreaded virus.
The irony is that in doing so, the civic agency is violating its own earlier ban on hoardings and banner in the city limits. Not only that, there has been no transparency while selecting a supplier for the cloth to be used in the process, for which it is drawing on an amount of Rs. 49.50 crore earmarked in the budget.
A three-page affidavit (copy available with theBengalurulive) filed by BBMP Commissioner BH Anil Kumar and NK Lakshmisagar, under-secretary (BBMP) to the Urban Development Department, on Wednesday before a High Court bench of Chief Justice AS Oka and Justice Alok Aradhe stated that the funds will be utilised out of an amount of Rs 49.50 crore reserved under P-code 3810 in the BBMP budget for 2020-21.
“The hoardings to be displayed within the BBMP limits will be put up by meeting expenses out of the above funds. I submit that BBMP undertakes to use the cotton cloth manufactured by M/s. Arvind Mills without using any plastic for displaying hoardings on the subject of the said coronavirus. No other prohibited materials in law will be used for exhibiting the hoardings,” the affidavit reads.
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