Twitter
Advertisement

BMC bowls doosra fete proposal to Tendulkar

Keeping up its tradition, it is now dilly-dallying over a proposal to felicitate Tendulkar for his 35 test cricket centuries.

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Every time Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) decides to felicitate a prominent person, he or she may proceed on a long vacation.

Keeping up its tradition, it is now dilly-dallying over a proposal to felicitate Sachin Tendulkar for his record-breaking 35 test cricket centuries. The proposal to felicitate  him was put up by former deputy mayor Arun Dev and BEST Committee Chairman Surendra Bagalkar. But even this time, civic authorities fear that the proposal may remain only on paper.

There are reasons behind this fear. In the recent past, there were proposals to felicitate eminent personalities like Tendulkar (when he notched 10,000 runs), Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar, Indian idol Abhijeet Sawant (who happened to be son of a civic employee), the late astronaut Kalpana Chawla, former Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi, the Oscar-nominated Marathi movie Shwaas team, and many others.

After the announcements were made, the celebrities waited patiently for the elusive felicitation. Civic sources said that there had been no follow-up and the proposals got eventually dumped.

In the recent past, only a business magnate, the late Dhirubhai Ambani, was accorded a civic felicitation in 2000; since then, at least 10 names have been announced - but felicitation has not followed.

Mayor Datta Dalvi admitted that the BMC was not according public felicitation to prominent personalities in the city. “But, within one month, I shall personally take up the issue and and accord civic felicitation to the personalities,” he told DNA.

There could be some hitch here - Kalpana Chawla is no more and Manohar Joshi is no more the Speaker. Nationalist Congress Party leader Ravindra Pawar said that probably the celebrities had busy schedules and could not allot dates for the civic felicitation.

However, civic sources claimed that it was nothing but lack of interest on the part of the top BMC authorities who were merely interested in seeking mileage out of making the announcements.

BMC invitation never reached their address

Personalities still awaiting a civic felicitation by the BMC:

Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar - 2001
Lok Sabha Speaker - Manohar Joshi - 2001-2002
Astronaut Kalpana Chawla - 2002-2003
Sachin Tendulkar - 2003-2004
Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant - 2004-2005
Sandeep Sawant, director of Oscar-nominated Marathi movie Shwaas - 2004-2005

 

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement