Mayor makes UK envoy wait 45 minutes

In the meantime, Mayor-in-Council members Firhad Hakim and Sashi Panja tried their best to keep him company. Later the mayor said, “I have apologised to him for being late. Actually, I was coming from another meeting and got caught in a massive traffic jam. Schools get over at that time; so there was jam.”

This was Wadvani’s maiden meeting with the new mayor of the KMC board, formed on June 16. The British High Commission has several plans for beautification of the city, especially the Ganga riverfront. “The British government is very keen to establish more links with India through business and educational institutions,” said the Kolkata-born Wadvani, who spent the initial eight years of his life in this city before moving to the UK with his family.

The British deputy high commissioner also invited the mayor for a workshop on Solid Waste Management Programmes, to be held in Birmingham this September.”Today we talked generally about how British businessmen work and what kind of expertise they wield, about British city beautification projects. We have developed the bank of Thames in a spectacular way and if possible, we will talk to senior officials about some of the plans we have regarding the beautification of this city’s riverfront. We believe that cities around the world should learn from each other,” he added. 

Wadvani also handed over a detailed project plan to the mayor. The document, which has details of all the British companies involved in London’s and the Thames riverfront’s beautification process, gives an elaborate idea about the mammoth task. Incidentally, the same document was handed over in 2002 to the then Kolkata mayor but not much of it has been implemented in the past eight years.

Saying that the KMC would consider the ideas given by the British deputy high commissioner, Chatterjee said, “We are a new board and these kind of suggestions are exactly what we need at the moment. We will take these discussions further as we are very serious about beautifying the 10 km stretch of riverfront that falls under the KMC’s jurisdiction. We have to find out how we can carry out this work with the cooperation and funding of the British Government.”