Amritsar: Apparently miffed over not being invited for the Amritsar mayoral election today, Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu yesterday said he never goes anywhere uninvited "except the Golden Temple or Durgiana Temple".
Elected councillors of the Municipal Corporation of Amritsar will tomorrow take oath and then all the elected councillors will unanimously elect the next mayor of the holy city.
Punjab cabinet minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa has been assigned the duty to oversee the mayoral elections. Mayors of Jalandhar and Patiala will be elected on January 25.
During a press conference here today, when Sidhu was asked whether he was going to attend the programme where Amritsar's next mayor will be elected, Sidhu said, "No". "I never go anywhere uninvited except the Golden Temple or Durgiana Temple. Since I was not invited to any such function, there's no question of attending such a programme," said Sidhu.
"I have no knowledge who will be the next mayor of Amritsar, only Chief Minister Amarinder Singh knows it," he said. The local bodies minister also represents Amritsar East Assembly constituency in the state legislature.
Earlier, Sidhu informed that storm drains of four big cities Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, and Patiala which get clogged due to excess water from industrial units and sewerages would soon be cleaned and transformed into environment-friendly ones with the help of 'NEERI' (National Environmental Engineering Research Institute).
"The state had 64 sewerage treatment plants at various places and they were built with a cost of Rs 1,300 crore but they are proving to be white elephants," Sidhu said.
He said the Union Government had suggested the cleaning of drains with the assistance of NEERI a model developed by the scientists of IIT.
"An agreement with regard to the project will be inked soon and the model NEERI would be operational soon which would be completed in one year," he said.
Sidhu said this technique is "very cost-effective and needs no additional space". "The target of environmental cleanliness can also be achieved by planting decorated plants in the drains which would soon be developed into tourist spots and cycle tracks," he said.
