BANGALORE: The ruling Congress in the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) Council on Saturday was forced to defer the proposal to reintroduce the controversial `pay and park' scheme after members of the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal (Secular) expressed divergent views on the issue.

Though the scheme was scrapped from April 1 last year by the former Mayor R. Narayanaswamy, the BMP was seriously planning to reintroduce it, and a proposal in this regard was tabled at the council's subject meeting on Saturday.

While the JD (S) members supported the Congress decision to reintroduce the scheme, the BJP members demanded that the subject be deferred.

"Our party is responsible for the scrapping of the scheme. It will not be fair to bring it back. We will convince the Government to allow us to continue free parking in the city. We are sure we will be successful because our party is part of the Government now," BJP leader A.H. Basavaraju said.

But the JD (S) members, who said that their party also represented the Government, said: "they will ensure that the scheme was reintroduced." This forced the Mayor to defer the subject.

Noisy scenes

The council witnessed noisy scenes when the former Congress floor leader H. Jayaram was involved a verbal duel with the Mayor over the approval of a subject relating to the construction of a railway overbridge in RPC Layout.

When Mr. Jayaram wanted to know whether the council resolution to construct the overbridge at a cost of Rs. 2 crores had been forwarded to the Government, the Mayor said that no such subject had been approved. This irked the member, who challenged that he could prove that it was approved at the last meeting. "This has been approved and it is wrong on your part to deny it. You check the records," he said.

The matter was resolved after the ruling party leader H. Ravindra intervened and said that he had read out the subject and it was indeed approved. "May be the Mayor did not notice it," he said and added that it would be recorded immediately.

Dumping yard

The council also approved a resolution to take possession of 169 acres of land allotted by the State Government at Bidarahalli near Mandur in Bangalore East taluk for a dumping yard.

While the Congress members wanted to defer the subject because the Department of Forests, which had grown trees on the land had asked the BMP to pay Rs. 29 lakhs, the JD (S) and BJP members demanded that the subject be approved.

"We have no proper dumping yards to dispose of the city waste. Rejecting this proposal will be a foolish thing," the Opposition members said.

The Mayor approved it after Commissioner K. Jothiramalingam said that the BMP could work it out with the Government. "We have asked for 400 acres of land for dumping yards on the outskirts of the city. This amount can be adjusted in future as we are paying it only to the Government and not to any private institution," he added.

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