Outgoing Mayor lists his achievements, and also failures

Says he is hurt by fellow BJP corporator Ramesh's allegations

 The outgoing Mayor of Bangalore D Venkatesh Murthy on Tuesday made out a case for having a Mayor-in-Council system, which provides more executive powers and five-year tenure for the Mayor.

Addressing reporters on the last day of his tenure as 46th Mayor of Bangalore, Murthy said the construction of Kadirenahalli underpass, which was much delayed, got inaugurated during his tenure. It was during his tenure that the garbage tenders were floated, which had not happened for many years.

“There will be no garbage crisis for another 25 years due to the measures taken during my tenure,” he claimed.

He also claimed that the Palike recovered lots of its property during his term. He also took credit for being the only Mayor who presented the BBMP budget twice. He said he was instrumental in bringing the new Cadre and Recruitment Rules in the BBMP.

He also listed some of the major failures during his tenure. “We had selected 85 roads for tarring, which did not happen. Also, we could take up only two roads for widening out of 13 selected. We also failed to construct the Kempegowda Arch at four entrances of the City,” said Murthy.

He blamed the officials for the failure to execute many ambitious projects. Murthy said, “Most of the projects we could not accomplish because we do not have executive powers and enough time. The failures should be attributed to officials. If there was Mayor-in-Council system in place, we would have performed better.”

Asked about his saddest moment as the Mayor, he said the oppositionto his Rs 8,520 crore budget this year from his own party colleague N R Ramesh had hurt him the most.

‘Will expose Murthy’

Meanwhile, Murthy’s statements against Ramesh resulted in an ugly war of words with the latter saying that Mayor has no moral right to question his integrity.

A fuming Ramesh told Deccan Herald, “It should be probed how an ordinary plumber became a millionaire. From now on, my single-point agenda will be to expose all his illegal dealings.”

Defending himself, Ramesh said the Mayor presented the budget of Rs 8,520 crore but at the last minute of approval of the budget, he got a special grant of Rs 830 crore approved.

Of that, Rs 215 crore was for the wards represented by the Congress corporators and a meagre Rs 90 crore for those represented by the BJP members.