Patna, (Bihar Times): Whatever may be the view of the Municipal Commissioner of Patna, Mihir Kumar Singh, the chief minister Nitish Kumar held the Patna Municipal Corporation responsible for the mess in the state capital.
Only the other day the Municipal Commissioner wrote an over 1000-word strong rejoinder to the Hindustan Times to stoutly defend the functioning of PMC. He even accused the journalists and Press photographers of being biased and indulging in politically motivated reporting. Before that the PMC also issued a big advertisement to wash its hand off from the water-logging.
However, in the review meeting on Friday the chief minister pulled up the officials and engineers for their inept handling of the situation. He instructed the irrigation department to help the PMC and bring more pump-sets to de-water over one-fourth of the capital, which is waist deep in water for the last ten years.
The chief minister’s order, though belated, is yet to have its any magic impact on the area. However, water is likely to reduce in the next few years as the rain has virtually stopped. He also instructed the urban development department to form a team of engineers to effectively handle the drainage system.
Though Met department director, T N Jha, went on record to say that the rain in Patna was heavy, but not abnormal, yet the chief minister went on to put all the blame on the nature by stating that he had never seen such heavy downpour in his life.
