AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) may be allowed to start work on 21 of the 31 projects that were stalled following directions from the district collector (district election officer) citing model code of conduct.

The Gujarat High Court, which is hearing a petition by four BJP councillors challenging this direction, was informed on Friday that state Election Commission has recommended to the Chief Election Commission (CEC) to permit work on the 21 projects, councillors’ advocate Rashmin Jani said.

However, state EC’s advocate did not mention when was the recommendation made and which were the projects it would allow to be completed, said Jani.

Corporators Dhirubhai Palej from Vasna, Mahadev Desai (Kubernager), Dhanji Patel (Nikol Road) and Devendra Bhatt (Vatva) had moved the high court recently objecting against the district election officer’s direction to AMC.

On October 23, the district election officer had directed the municipal commissioner to stall all projects in which work orders were issued before October 10, but the work had not commenced by October 20. The direction was issued after the model code of conduct was implemented in the state.

They claimed that projects worth Rs 200 crore were affected by the order and if the work was not started, it would be impossible to complete works like resurfacing of roads and construction of buildings before next monsoon.

They contended that because of the EC direction, resurfacing of nearly 200 km road would not be completed before monsoon and this would result in increase of cost also.

A division bench of Justices A R Dave and H B Antani has scheduled further hearing on November 27.

SOURCE