Now, MBMC sends 67 corporators on study tour to Mysore

Mumbai: Sixty-seven Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation (MBMC) corporators, cutting across party lines, on Wednesday left on a ‘study tour’ to Mysore two days after their Mumbai counterparts returned from the Andaman Islands. The tour, which will guzzle up Rs 45 lakh of taxpayers’ money, comes as the corporation is in the midst of a severe financial crunch and cannot even run its Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (Temba) hospital.
As the corporators, along with the mayor’s secretary, two peons and some family members boarded their flight, around 1,300 conservancy workers protested outside the civic headquarters in Bhayander (W), demanding minimum wages. They have threatened to stop sweeping roads and picking up garbage if their demands are not met by February 10.
The corporators, including deputy mayor Pravin Patil (Shiv Sena), leader of the House Rohidas Patil (BJP), standing committee chairperson Harishchandra Aamgaonkar (Sena), ward committee chairpersons Rakesh Shah (BJP), Sandra Rodriques (NCP) and Zubair Inamdar (Congress) will visit the Mysore City Corporation and return on February 7.
Mayor Geeta Jain (BJP) will join her counterparts on February 6. Corporators like Dipika Arora (BJP), Subhangi Kothari (Sena) and husband-wife Sandeep and Pranali Patil are accompanied by their children.
Among the 30 corporators who did not opt for the tour are BJP MLA Narendra Mehta, former NCP mayor Cathleen Pereira and former deputy mayor Noorjahan Hussain.
The proposal was approved at the general body meeting last month. The cost per person has worked out to Rs60,000. This year, for the first time, to avoid cancellations, corporators had to give a written undertaking of their readiness to go on the tour.
Civic sources said the corporators wanted to go on a Mysore-Ooty study tour but the cost per person was working out to Rs74,000. Last August, 97 corporators had visited Ooty on a study tour.
The study tour comes in the background of the civic administration expressing displeasure in running the civic hospital in Bhayander (W). The administration has told the Bombay high court it cannot run the hospital due to a financial crunch and urged the state to take it over. MMRDA has shown its displeasure in funding civic projects due to its financial condition, civic sources said.
MBMC corporators go on at least two study tours every year. Right from Jammu & Kashmir to Kanyakumari, corporators have visited most states. The study tours have also taken them to Malaysia, Nepal, Shanghai and Europe.