BBMP wastes time in felicitation, ignores rain preparedness

The BBMP council, which met for three and half hours, failed to discuss rain preparedness despite widespread damage caused by more than 200 trees/tree branches falling in the past one week and two people losing lives in rain-related incidents on Tuesday.

The council spent about an hour and 30 minutes on sending off a retired chief engineer while the remaining time got washed off in arguments over various issues.

Shakambari Nagar councillor M Malathi, the sole member who requested the mayor to take up the issue, said she was disappointed.

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“Over the past two weeks, more than 40 trees have fallen in our ward and the BBMP officials have failed to take up emergency works in time. I visited places where three cars were damaged. The BBMP Forest Department officials should have been summoned to the council to address the issues,” she said.

She said the BBMP Forest Wing was yet to call tenders for the funds released last year. “We are bringing up the issue of clearing branches and trees vulnerable to heavy rain. There has been no positive response to our requests,” she told DH.

To a question, ruling party leader K A Munindra Kumar admitted that rain preparedness should have been discussed on priority. “We will take up the issue during the next meeting scheduled on June 5,” he added.