Civic body places revised budget

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Dec. 31: The Congress-led English Bazaar civic body was today able to place a revised budget, with the support of all the 11 Left Front councillors, while the seven rebel councillors did not attend the meeting for the third consecutive day today. It may be noted here that seven rebel councillors, had not been attending the board meeting since the past two months, expressing ‘no confidence’ against the civic body chief, Mr Narendranath Tiwari. On the other hand, the LF councillors had boycotted the budget in last two board meetings. When the seven councillors, followers of the English Bazaar Congress MLA, Mr KN Choudhury, did not attend the meeting, a total of 11 LF councillors today attended the meeting, extending cooperation to the Congress chairman, Mr Tiwari. Finally, the seven councillors, including the ones belonging to the Trinamul Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party placed the revised budget today under the leadership of Mr Tiwari. When the matter came to light, the rebel councillors alleged that the chairman did not send letters to them to attend the meeting. They termed the process of placing the revised budget as ‘illegal'. In the revised budget, the board today reduced nearly Rs 2 crore in its expenses. The English Bazaar Municipality had passed its budget of over Rs. 25 crore, at the beginning of the financial year. The civic body had to cut short its expenses of over Rs 2 crore because the board had not received sufficient funds from three Central government schemes estimated earlier. The civic body chief, Mr Narendranath Tiwari, today criticised the role of the seven rebel councillors for their non cooperation. The Opposition leader, Mr DN Chaki said: “Had we not extended cooperation, the board would have faced problem to continue service in essential sectors like water supply, conservancy and electricity”.