'Bengaluru Mayor wasted Rs 200cr of taxpayers’ money: Reddy

BENGALURU: Leader of Opposition in BBMP Council Padmanabha Reddy accused BBMP Mayor G Padmavathy and Bengaluru Development Minister K J George of wasting around Rs 200 crore of taxpayers’ money.Reddy said the Mayor and the Minister had roped in certain service providers for garbage collection from the 198 wards without calling for a tender as is the norm.

He said due to the absence of a tender, Joint Commissioner of Health Sarfaraz Khan got a notice from the from the GST department, asking for payment of about Rs 200 crore as service tax. Reddy asked for a high court-monitored probe.In another allegation, Reddy said Rs 1 crore of taxpayers’ money had been spent on conducting a volleyball tournament which didn’t even get recognition under the Volleyball Federation of India. He said for every event wherein more than Rs 1 lakh had to be spent, floating a tender was necessary as per the Transparency Act.He added that a committee consisting of Assembly members, councillors, Opposition party members should discuss the event and take a decision, but the event was being conducted like a Congress event.