A Surprise visit by Municipal Commissioner G S Ghuman on Thursday proved to be an eye-opening experience, with various anomalies being found in the maintenance of tubewells on part of the contractors.

There was not a single site where the chlorination process was being undertaken, in which the Municipal Corporation spends lakhs of rupees.

It was also found that tubewell operators, who are paid Rs 3,100 per month according to MC records, were not actually getting more than Rs 1,000 from the contractors.

At the Partap Chowk tubewell, the operator was not present while at Cycle Market, the operator said he was being paid Rs 700 only. At Model Gram, the operator claimed that he was being paid Rs 1,000.

The tubewell was not functioning in Nirankari Mohalla due to a fault while the visit to Miller Ganj and Dholewal sprung a surprise.

The contractors here had rented out the MC tubewell room to a man who said he was paying Rs 700 per month to the operator and a certain amount to the contractor too.

The Kochar market tubewell was found locked when it should have been in operation.

It may be recalled that contractors had recently complained of their payment not being released by MC Commissioner Ghuman.

The chlorination process, too, was also not being followed at these places, corroborating the results of several tests conducted by the microbiology department of Punjab Agricultural University.

Point taken

Councillors delaying salaries of operators?

... contd.