Nagpur: Empty liquor bottles, used glass tumblers, food wrappers and piles of garbage were found strewn across the sixth floor of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) headquarters on Monday, exposing serious lapses in security and administrative discipline inside one of the city’s key govt buildings.The sixth floor houses several key civic departments, including the garden department, education department, legal department, IT cell and the city’s Command and Control Centre (COC), making the discovery particularly embarrassing for the civic administration.Social and environmental activist Sachin Khobragade stumbled upon the scene while visiting the garden department. As he stepped into the corridor between the garden and education departments to take a phone call, he noticed liquor bottles lying alongside heaps of garbage. Two glass tumblers were also found at the spot.Khobragade recorded videos and photographs of the mess and forwarded them to municipal commissioner Vipin Itankar. Within minutes of receiving the visuals, the commissioner reportedly directed officials to clear the area. Sanitation staff quickly removed the garbage and cleaned the corridor before the issue could draw wider attention.The incident has, however, triggered uncomfortable questions. How did liquor bottles find their way onto the floor housing key departments? Were civic employees or outsiders consuming alcohol inside NMC Headquarters after working hours? If so, how did they evade CCTV surveillance and security personnel stationed at the building?The episode also exposes a striking contradiction. While NMC spends crores of rupees under the Swachh Bharat Mission and penalises citizens for littering and violating sanitation norms, its own headquarters was found littered with garbage and apparent evidence of drinking.The presence of liquor bottles near the IT cell and the Command and Control Centre has also raised concerns over access control and security at NMC headquarters. Civic activists have demanded that NMC examine CCTV footage, identify those responsible, initiate disciplinary action and strengthen security measures to prevent a recurrence.The mess at NMC headquarters comes at a time when the corporation is intensifying public awareness campaigns on cleanliness and vector-borne disease prevention during the monsoon, making the condition of its own premises even more difficult to justify.
