Civic body struggles with pre-monsoon work deadline

Nashik: The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC), which was supposed to start pre-monsoon works by May-end, swung into action just over a week ago.
As the monsoon reached Nashik on Monday with the city receiving moderate showers on Tuesday, the NMC said the works are being done on a priority basis and would be completed soon.
Works such as trimming of tree branches, cleaning and repairing nullahs, gutters, chambers, drainages, roads and repairing streetlights began 8-10 days ago across six divisions of the city.Only trimming branches of trees was carried out a fortnight ago. The NMC has been drawing flak for delaying pre-monsoon works since 2013. Barring tree trimming, other works are yet to start like every year. With the onset of monsoon, the works could be slowed down further. Moreover, there have been reports of waterlogging every year in many parts.
Five pre-monsoon works are on in the Nashik Road division worth Rs 19 lakhs, 14 in CIDCO (New Nashik) at a cost of Rs 38.74 lakh, 13 in Nashik East by spending Rs 57.25 lakh, three in Nashik West at an expenditure of Rs 14.9 lakh, six in the Panchavati division worth Rs 28.98 lakh and in four in Satpur at a cost of Rs 16.2 lakh. "We started cleaning the nullahs around eight days ago. We will finish all the work," said an NMC official.
Kerosene in man's bag
A senior citizen reached the NMC office on Tuesday evening allegedly with an intention of immolate himself. He met additional municipal commissioner Anil Chavan and mayor Ashok Murtadak. He was apparently promised a house under the Gharkul scheme when the NMC constructed the vegetable market near the Godavari where he had a hutment. But he did not get the house even after a decade of follow-up. On Tuesday, NMC employees extracted a bottle of kerosene from his bag after suspecting that might harm himself.