Aam Aadmi Party MLAs in the Delhi Assembly on Monday demanded strict action against government officials who the Petitions Committee had last week found to have misled it over the status of cleaning of drains.
Adopting the report of the Petitions Committee presented on June 30, the Assembly passed a resolution recommending that the “matter of misleading the Committee be examined by the Committee on Privileges.”
Panel inspected drains
The Assembly also directed the Delhi government to implement recommendations of the Petitions Committee and present an action-taken report within 30 days. The Petitions Committee had carried out inspections of drains and met officials of the PWD and municipal corporations in June. It had found that drains the PWD said had been desilted were still dirty. Also, it had recommended an inquiry of the PWD’s desilting works by the Chief Secretary.
On Monday, the Assembly, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal absent, saw AAP MLAs doubling down on the PWD, with Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri saying the officials responsible must face criminal cases. “Officials who left drains dirty, which led to accumulation of water and mosquito breeding, should be tried for culpable homicide,” said Mr. Shastri.
Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba called for the officials responsible to be “jailed”. Adding that Delhi government officials were not afraid of MLAs, she said that while the State government may not be able to do anything to the officers, the Delhi Assembly could, citing the example of two protesters who were sent to jail by the Speaker last week for disrupting the House.
‘Health terrorism’
Hari Nagar MLA Jagdeep Singh, meanwhile, said that dirty drains and waterlogging during the monsoon would lead to “health terrorism”. “Despite asking many times, the PWD officials failed to give me their schedules and time-tables for desilting work and inspections,” he said.
While the Petitions Committee hit out against PWD Principal Secretary Ashwani Kumar, there was no mention of PWD Minister Satyendar Jain. “We don’t support the report of the committee. Why was the PWD Minister protected? All the files have his signatures,” said Rajouri Garden MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa.
Mr. Jain, who said he supported the Petitions Committee’s report, added that PWD chief engineers were “unilaterally” transferred by the Central Public Works Department just before the monsoon. This, he said, should not have been done.
