Nagpur News: Nagpur Mayor Anil Sole completed his one year of tenure in the office on Tuesday. However, he appeared little hitched in lauding the achievements during this period, but the reason was apparent, understandably for the lack of any substance worth mentioning. He had smartly passed on the evaluation of his work to the media person present on the occasion. When asked about his future course of action, his answer appeared seemingly more diplomatic than the concrete one. “Development is an ongoing process,” he quipped in a defending mode.
Recently Nagpur bagged the best city award at a private event in Delhi. But the Nagpurites are finding it difficult to figure out the exact reason behind giving away this award. It is quite evident that Nagpur was given award for best services in health care, greenery and public transport – the areas in which the city showed sharp decline in the quality of services. This has led the people to question the veracity of the award.
Nagpur Today presents a brief account of the current status of the above areas in which Nagpur was said to be leading from other high end metro cities like Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.
Pathetic Government Hospitals
As most of the NMC hospitals under Health Department are lying in shambles with least or no facilities, the private and expensive hospitals have mushroomed in Dhantoli, Ramdaspeth and Medical Square area of Nagpur. Ironically, the medicines remained out of stock for most part of the year at Government Medical College where people from across Central India come to get treatment. Touts have their day in and out at Mayo and Daga Hospital – the other two government run hospitals in Nagpur. The facilities are now given according to the ‘approach’ the patient carries.
No move to clean lakes
The cleanliness of lakes and rivers remain far-fetched dream as the NMC administration itself has no records of when and how the cleanliness drive to keep these water bodies clean had taken place.
Poor Public Transport
The public transport situation is just going worse by the day. The buses purchased from government funds are deadly in need of repair and maintenance. The commuters have to risk their lives traveling in these buses as most of them are in very bad shape. The contractor has allocated routes to the not so experienced people who remained interested in collecting fares rather than improving the condition of vehicles. More than half of the star buses in the city have gone defunct while most of the others are screeching towards grind halt. The contractor too often threatens to leave the service as the NMC has failed to find new taker to operate the star buses in the city.
Green City…? Oh Really?
Talking about green city, the NMC clearly lacks conviction in making the city really green. As a matter of fact, greenery only exists in west Nagpur and that too because of the areas like Seminary Hills, Botanical Garden, Vayusena Nagar, Neeri and VNIT.
Interestingly, the condition of Ambazari garden run by NMC has gone from bad to worse during the last 7-8 years. NMC claims that one lakh saplings were planted last month but it fails to come up with the fresh status of what happened to these saplings. The clean city concept is restricted to papers only.
Citizens Disagree
Not a single citizen is reportedly willing to buy the theory of conferring Best City title to Nagpur, especially on the grounds that were mentioned to justify the award. The crime rate is reaching new high. The water supply works has been deliberately allotted to the close partner of a BJP leader for another 25 years. The water is being supplied on tankers the cost of which incurred to the tune of Rs 5 crore.
The apathy towards the city can also be gauged from the fact that roads are constructed, then dug up and left in same pathetic state.
Perhaps for these reasons only, Mayor Anil Sole preferred to keep mum rather than bragging about achievements.
The citizens expect that Sole along with his party members and supporting nagarsewaks would get the proposal to oppose implementation of LBT approved with majority.
