The Pioneer 27.08.2010
City lacks long-term planning, says ex-Mayor
Nishu Mahajan | Chandigarh
As the City Administration continues to hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons and fails to respond timely and effectively to the emerging needs of the city denizens, the city senior politicians pick apart the higher authorities for being incompetent and incapacitated.
The city politicians feel that the facilities provided by the UT Administration have not kept pace with the growing needs of the city. “The biggest issue of the city is non-existence of long-term planning and this has been totally neglected by the UT Administration and the Congress, which is in power here at present,” said the first Mayor of the city Kamla Sharma while talking to The Pioneer.
Kamla Sharma, who is also a former president of city BJP said: “Chandigarh, which was designed and planned for a population of five lakh people is now bursting at the seams with over 12 lakh inhabitants resulting in troubles like traffic congestion, parking space, accidents, deteriorating law and order etc.”
“In 1996, when Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh came into existence, we emphasised on the need to draft a long-term planning of the city. However, even now nothing has been done in this regard. Issues like parking space, traffic congestion, pollution, ever-increasing population are the main concern of the city and could have been managed if the UT Administration has had a long term planning,” she added.
She said, “We conceptualised bringing Metro project, fly-overs, multi-level parkings for the city but the idea has not seen the light of day and the higher authorities seems to be more interested in hitting headlines for controversies than doing some substantial work for the development of the city.”
Expressing her concern and anguish on the worsening situation of the city, she added: “It is really unfortunate the way, the citizens are suffering due to the insensitive approach of the higher authorities who are doing nothing for the development of the city.”
Blaming the City Administration for the deteriorating condition of the city, city’s ex-MP Satya Pal Jain said: “The city has gone through a tremendous change. Earlier when I used to visit Sector 17 market, there were only few shops with large area of parking for the city denizens. However, now the situation has completely changed as number of vehicles in the city has been increasing by the day resulting in traffic congestion, increasing pollution and less parking spaces.
“Issues of shortage of basic needs like water, housing, electricity, health facilities are troubling the residents from a longtime. To streamline the traffic congestion here, we need conveniences like fly-overs and Metros, however, the UT Administration is more into making controversies than doing work for the city,” he added.
“Chandigarh is also grappling with the high level of corruption. Many corruption cases are registered against the senior administrative officers. The recent corruption cases on administration officers have affected the mega-projects of the city and the development of Chandigarh has come to a stand still,” said Jain.
Lashing out at the administration for not addressing the grievances of the populace, Jain said: “The population of city has increased in past decades but the higher authorities didn’t pay attention to the problems like housing and traffic congestion, in spite of having full control over the entire power structure of city — from Municipal Corporation to Union Home Ministry — and still, the city has been made to suffer.”
“Though the local administration is chalking out plans for the Metro project, flyovers, community parkings, multi-level parkings from last five years, all the projects are still far from reality and implementation,” he added.
Criticising the local administration, city BJP president Sanjay Tandon said: “The administration has no vision for the city. It is very unfortunate that the city denizens are devoid of necessary facilities here.”
He said: “Even after paying tax, the city denizens are overlooked and are not being endowed with the usual services. All the roads leading to posh areas of the city are carpeted and re- carpeted time and again but the common man of the city awaits all necessary facilities.”
“Deteriorating law and order, growing slums, traffic congestion, parking problem, poor transport system and rampant corruption are the major ailments of the city and the higher ups are neglecting these issues. These issues bottlenecked manifold development of Chandigarh,” he added.
