Amidst reports of poor functioning of JMC and after recently Jammu city declared one of the dirtiest city in Swachh Survekshan-2020, former Minister and senior Congress leader Raman Bhalla today interacted with party Corporators to get feedback about functioning of JMC and also various issues of their respective wards confronting people and also to find way out in this regard how to serve people of their respective wards properly and effectively. Listening to them,Bhalla comes to conclusion that people of Jammu want development, employment opportunities, better infrastructure and other basic requirements like adequate water and power supply. But unfortunately erstwhile BJP Govt in J&K and BJP Govt at centre have badly failed to address these issues and under LG Administration things are not moving in right direction either forcing people to move from poll to pillar for address of their basic issues. During interaction Corporators highlighted basic issues in Jammu urban areas including irregular drinking water supply, poor power supply besides issues of lanes and drains along with poor road infrastructure in most of the areas. Bhalla was informed that a good number of tube wells are not functional and some areas are not getting water supply for three to four days together. Some areas have narrow lanes where water tanker cannot enter making their life miserable due to lack of this fundamental necessity. Prominent among those present on the occasion include Corporators Kamal Singh, Ch Dwarka ,Inderjit Kour,Sobat Ali,Pritam Singh, Bhanu Mahajan,Block President Amit Bali,Satish Sharma,SS Dutt, Jatinder Chib, Arvind Sharma, Mandip Singh, JMC contesting Candidates Kulbushan Sharma (PCC Member),Vijay Choudhury,Paramjit Singh, Reeta Devi, Advocate Shakeel, Deewan Chand, Vijay Chib,Jatin Vashist,Vinay Sharma, Aman Bawa, Pawan Bhagat,Ajay Mahajan,Chancal Popli,Bhadhur Singh, Latish Sharma, Rohit Kuma,R Suman Choudary, Prabha Slathia ,Anita Sharma, Ramandeep Kour, Puran Chand Narinder Sharma, Happy beside others.
Speaking on the occasion, Bhalla said that Congress belives in action on ground and never indulges in baseless rhetoric, hollow sloganeering and has done tremendous works without beating drums like Hospitals, road connectivity, schools, Degree Colleges, University campuses, Medical Colleges, widening of Jammu-Srinagar national highway, numerous drinking water supply schemes, power supply to all almost every village and remote belt of J&K. It is not BJP but tireless efforts of Congress party that the people of J&K are on the path of development and prosperity.Bhalla alleged that it is getting difficult for people of Jammu to trust BJP anymore as BJP has been befooling the people of this city with dreams of making Jammu a Smart City. The results of the Swachh Survekshan-2020 have exposed claims of BJP, as Jammu has been declared one of the dirtiest cities of the country.He said that it as another shocker for the people of Jammu and an eye-opener for BJP leaders ruling the roost in JMC as well & regretted that the city of temples had been converted into a pit of garbage and the pitiable unhygienic condition of the city could only be attributed to the inefficiency of party leaders who were mandated to power by the people of Jammu pinning high hopes from them.He further expressed shock over the frequent media reports that 95 million litters of untreated sewage was dumped into River Tawi on daily basis but the concerned authorities were still unconcerned and unmoved. He said that the Jammu leadership should wake up from a deep slumber and learn a lesson from other cleaner’s cities and their leadership so as to erase the stigma of the dirtiest city rather than making absurd claims of its beautification and development. He said that the sensational disclosure had not come as wholly unexpected in view of the extremely chaotic sewerage, drainage and development scenario in the city of temples. Likewise, the highly deficient and defective drainage system, open pits and leakages of water supply pipes, lack of sewage treatment plants, illegal dumping of municipal solid waste, lack of ambient air monitoring stations, etc. posed a serious hazard to human health in Jammu city, he deplored. The JMC has increased the number of wards from 71 to 75 but the strength of the safai karamcharis is the same,” he said.