PHED, Urban Development Minister at Loggerheads

Patna: July 24, 2008

Former Urban Development Minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, who now, though begrudgingly, sports the title of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) minister, on Thursday at a press conference, shot back at the current Urban Development Minister Bhola Singh for saying that the sump houses were not running at full capacity causing delay in draining water out of Patna streets.

"I may not be the Urban Development Minister anymore but I still care about the conditions of Patna as I did before being moved to the PHED. Mr. Singh's assertion that the sump houses are not working at full capacity is simply not true. They are being run round-the-clock with only few minutes of break each day," Choubey said adding machines, like the humans, also needed periodical breaks if they were expected to function trouble-free.

Singh, meanwhile, maintains that officials responsible for operating the sump houses were not performing their duties diligently and there were rumors that they were also selling off diesel meant to run the pumps to individual buyers.

Choubey, however, rubbished the allegations saying the pumps were running at full capacity but the unprecedented rain in Patna in the last few weeks had taken its toll on the city machinery causing delay in the drainage of water.