Chandigarh : It requires advance booking if you want to hold a function at a community centre of the Municipal Corporation. But such formalities are easily forgotten if the person in question is a VIP.
Union Minister of State for Finance, Pawan Kumar Bansal, in fact, went as far as distributing invitation cards for a function without bothering to book its venue — the newly-inaugurated Sector 28 community centre.
While the community centre was inaugurated (by Bansal himself) this Saturday, the invitation cards were distributed a couple of days before the inauguration.
According to the invite, the minister had invited Congress activists of ward number 18 for a tea party at the community centre of Sector 28 B at 5 pm. on Sunday.
The community centre was, however, not booked for the purpose till afternoon.
When Newsline contacted the Junior Engineer of Ward Number 18, Dalbir Singh, around 11 am and asked about the status of booking, he expressed his ignorance about the function.
“I have no information about any such function; the community centre has not been booked by the minister for the purpose either,'' he said.
Sources told Newsline that no booking fee has been paid for the function that is to be held at the community centre.
Around 12.15 pm when Newsline again visited the community centre, the person responsible for bookings informed that Congress councillor Davinder Singh Babla had booked the place for three hours from 4 pm to 7 pm after a payment of Rs 285. “As they are using the lawns also, we would charge the entire amount from them,”he added.
Babla, on the contrary, said they have booked the community centre for the entire day by paying Rs 2,500. “As the community centre was inaugurated only yesterday, advance booking was not possible. But this morning we paid Rs 2,500 for its booking,'' he added.
A councilor, expressing his resentment, said while officials are available for booking a community centre for a minister even on Sundays, they are not available for ordinary people even during working days.
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