Continuing their attacks on the BJP-ruled municipal corporations for a second day, the Delhi Assembly on Friday accused the civic bodies of rampant corruption and set up an inquiry committee to look into the charges.
A special session of the Delhi Assembly had been called on Thursday and Friday to discuss the functioning of the municipal corporations. Over a dozen MLAs spoke over the two days, giving examples of alleged corruption and inefficiency in the civic bodies.
‘Councillors should resign’
Leading the charge, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the councillors should resign if they couldn’t pay employees on time.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) have been plagued by a financial crisis for over a year now, with the BJP blaming the AAP government for cutting funds.
“If they can’t pay salaries, they should resign. They should be ashamed. If my government couldn’t pay salaries, we would resign immediately,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
He said that the AAP government had increased funding to the corporations in the last financial year.
For the EDMC, he said, the Congress government had made a provision of Rs.416 crore in 2013-2014, and the BJP-ruled Centre had given Rs.441 crore in 2014-2015, when Delhi was under President’s Rule.
The AAP government increased the budget to Rs.702 crore in 2015-2016, said Mr. Kejriwal. Similarly, he said the budget for the North Corporation had also been hiked.
“How come they didn’t have trouble paying salaries when the Congress and their own party’s government gave them less money? The real reason is that they misused the funds we gave them,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
He added that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had “no faith” in their party’s councillors as they had refused to bail out the corporation last year when a strike hit services.
Mr. Kejriwal said the corruption in the Engineering Departments of the corporations was so entrenched that even Mr. Modi would not be able to have an awning constructed at his residence without a bribe.
Attacks on the corporations’ work on sanitation, health, education, toll tax, parking and advertisements were levelled by MLAs.
Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba alleged that BJP leaders were involved in running an illegal parking lot and the Nigam Bodh Ghat. Bijwasan MLA Colonel (retd.) Devender Sehrawat went as far as saying that the functions of the municipal corporations should be re-examined.
“There is duplication of some work, like building schools. We need to re-examine the powers and functions given to the municipalities,” said Col. Sehrawat.
Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti, who moved the motion to set up an inquiry committee, said that in his constituency municipal sanitation staff was involved in graft.
“This is happening in the ward represented by Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay,” said Mr. Bharti.
As per the motion, a House committee was set up to investigate the alleged rampant corruption in the municipalities and suggest measures to improve the functioning of the bodies.
The committee has been asked to submit its report before the sixth session of the Assembly.
Among the members of the committee are MLAs AjeshYadav, Kartar Singh Tanwar, Naresh Balyan, Sahi Ram and Bhavna Gaur. Speaker Ram Niwas Goel will be appointing a chairperson for the committee soon.
