As her tenure as titular head of Puducherry approaches a year, Lt. Governor Kiran Bedi is looking to fix accountability for slackness among civic officials in discharging their responsibility to keep the city clean.
According to Ms. Bedi, the weekend rounds on Sunday, brought to the fore several instances of failing performance on the cleanliness front, a mission she has invested in.
“Because of poor performance seen directly and personally, all supervisory and contributing officers are being sent a written displeasure for this failure,” she said.
The officials would be provided an opportunity to turn around the situation before the next inspection scheduled for May 28, Ms. Bedi said. “I have been giving guidance to officers by various means, the whole of last 11 months. It's time now for accountability and bearing the consequences of negligence,” the Lt. Governor said. For officers to get appreciation and good performance record, they shall have to improve ground realities where change was visible, she added.
The Raj Nivas, led by Ms. Bedi, visited Villianur Church and inspected the Church Pond on Sunday in the endeavour to sustain Swachh Puducherry, conserve and raise water tables.
The Lt. Governor took exception to the lack of co-ordination in internal management of municipal services in clearing the accumulation on the sides of the road en route to the church.
Lack of scientific method
Observing that scientific method was not adopted to keep the Villianur Church pond water clean, the Lt. Governor advised the church authorities to obtain Department of Science and Technology guidance for recycling and aeration and involve community to encourage people's ownership
At Velrampet site, it was noted that the barbed wire fencing of the lake had been tampered with to make inlets permitting irregular entry into lake for disposal of garbage and open defecation yet again. The Public Works Department officials were directed to periodically inspect the site and ensure that the fence, which had been erected with public money, was not tampered with.
The youth of the area were sensitised on the need to keep the Velrampet lake clean and be proactive in educating the local community to use the public or community toilet and not to contaminate the lake water by littering and defecating in the surroundings.
After an inspection of the Primary Health Centre, Murungapakkam, Ms. Bedi said proper planning had to be done by the Centre to visit schools and residential colonies to spread awareness on preventive health. Doctors on duty were advised to organise school visits to impart preventive education to children and community and digitise patient records.
