: A city-based civil society group has questioned the municipal corporation’s ‘wastage’ of public resources by not utilising equipment, including e-rickshaws for garbage collection, reverse vending machines, anti-smog guns and city buses.
Members of the organisation, Council of Engineers, Kapil Arora has written to the municipal commissioner and principal secretary of the department of local government, highlighting several projects started by the civic body spending public funds to the tune of several crores.
Arora said that as many as 120 city buses were purchased at a cost of ₹65.60 crore in 2021, but only a fraction of them are in working condition.
He said that majority of the 350 e-rickshaws for door-to-door collection of waste, which were purchased at a cost of ₹ 8.50 crore, and anti-smog guns purchased at a cost of ₹1.15 crore under the National Clean Air Program are lying unused.
He added that right reverse vending machines were bought at the cost of ₹50 lakh for recycling and reusing plastic waste.
Kuldeep Singh Khaira, a member of the organisation, said that instead of installing anti-smog guns in areas under construction, including Bharat Nagar Chowk and Pakhowal Road, these are lying unused in the storerooms.
{{/usCountry}}Kuldeep Singh Khaira, a member of the organisation, said that instead of installing anti-smog guns in areas under construction, including Bharat Nagar Chowk and Pakhowal Road, these are lying unused in the storerooms.
{{/usCountry}}He said that two of the vending machines were installed at the civil hospital in Ludhiana, but even as three months have passed, no electricity connection has been provided for these machines.