CHANDIGARH: Newly-elected

Rajesh Kumar alias Kalia has asked the municipal corporation (MC) to purchase Apple

with a new connection for him at a time when the civic body is struggling to battle fund crunch.

The mayor has made the demand in writing to the officers of the MC, who have initiated the process. It comes a week after Kalia was elected the mayor. Though a mayor is entitled to a new mobile phone, the choice of Kalia is quite expensive. An Apple iPhone X with 64GB space costs Rs 91,900, while the one with 256GB specification is for Rs 1.06 lakh.

According to records of the MC, both former mayors Asha Kumari Jaswal and Davesh Moudgil avoided to take any such facility and neither purchased a new mobile phone nor took a mobile connection at the expense of the civic body Mayors from the Congress (2013-2017) had purchased mobile phones, but not a single one was in this high price range.

MC rules state the mayor is entitled to take a mobile phone irrespective of any cost. The rules mention that after the term of the mayor, he has to return the phone and if he is keen to retain it and the number, he has to pay the depreciation amount to the civic body.

Many years back, the MC had distributed laptops to all 36 councillors costing Rs 14 lakh. A majority of the councillors neither returned the laptops nor gave the depreciation amount to the MC. In 2012, the civic body issued notice to all such councillors who failed to deposit the money, asking them to either deposit the laptops or pay the depreciation amount.