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Tuesday, Jan 29, 2008
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Noisy scenes at civic body meet

Correspondent

CUTTACK: The monthly council meeting of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) witnessed pandemonium and unruly scenes on Monday when corporators protested against the absence of civic body commissioner from the meeting while a few sweepers of the municipality forced their entry into the council hall when the meeting was on.

As soon as the council meeting began, Ward number eight corporator Seshadev Nanda brought to the notice of Mayor Nibedita Pradhan that the Municipal Commissioner was absent from the crucial meeting.

Soon the opposition Congress members and some of the dissident BJP members, including Pradeepta Routray of Ward number 25 vehemently criticised the absence of the official.

However, when Mr. Pradhan and Deputy Mayor Madhusudan Sahu were trying to pacify the agitated corporators, much to the dismay of the corporators, the sweepers of the municipality forced their entry into the meeting hall protesting against the privatisation of sanitary work in certain wards of the civic body.

Demanding immediate withdrawal of private parties from the civic body sanitary works, the sweepers staged a demonstration and squatted on the hall floor refusing to budge an inch if their demands were not immediately met.

Seeing the situation going out of control, the civic body authorities informed the police who in turn physically removed the striking sweepers from the meeting hall.

Raising slogans against police highhandedness, the sweepers threatened to self immolate if the civic body doesn’t roll back the decision of privatisation of civic work.

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