BMC elections 2022: BMC hires a contractor for penguins

Ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections 2022, the civic body has moved a contract for the maintenance of penguins at Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan which is also known as Byculla zoo. The work will go for one month costing Rs 35 lakhs. The work got delayed due to a delay in the appointment of a new contractor. The move from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has come after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attacked Shiv Sena's ruling in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), for giving a tender costing Rs 15 crore for maintenance of nine penguins at Byculla zoo for the next three years. The contract which was issued earlier where the monthly expense of the maintenance of penguins was seen at 32 lakhs per month and the proposal that was sent back was at 42 lakhs per month.

The contract costing 11.46 crores for 36 months ended in September last month and was further extended for another 42 days. “The contract will be ending in the next few days, so that’s the reason why we have invited a temporary contract for one month of the period that will be starting from November 14,” stated Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official in a statement. In the year 2016 eight penguins were brought out of which three are males and five are females from the Coex Aquarium in Seoul, in South Korea to the zoo.

Out of the eight penguins, two of them had a baby on August 15, 2018, which died on August 22. After which two more baby penguins were born. For the area of penguins, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) spent a total of 100 crores. With Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections 2022 around the corner this project was in high criticism from the opposition for its high-cost maintenance.

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