After fulfilling its promises on water and power tariff, passing Delhi Jan Lokpal, regularisation of unauthorised colonies and giving permanent job to the contractual workers, are next on the agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party government.
Immediately after proving the majority in Delhi Assembly Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill, was the “most important issue” on the agenda of his government in order to fight corruption in the Delhi Government and the municipal corporations .
Asserting that “no one will be spared, even my party leaders if found guilty” of indulging in corrupt practices, Mr. Kejriwal said: “Our priority is to pass the Jan Lokpal. I want to assure you that no act of corruption will be tolerated. If there is corruption during the Congress regime or the one by civic bodies, we will investigate every thing.”
Law Minister Somnath Bharti told The Hindu that the Delhi Jan Lokpal, which forms the crux of the AAP’s anti-corruption measures, will soon be introduced in the Assembly.
“The Delhi Jan Lokpal which has been named as Delhi Lokayukta Bill, is going to be a comprehensive legislation with its own investigating agencies. We are almost done with working on the finer details of the Bill and soon we will introduce it in the House,” added the Law Minister.
Asked if the AAP government will get the Congress support in passing the Bill, the Law Minister said: “We have been easily passing all the obstacle till now. In the future as well we will pass the hurdles.”
The AAP government has initiated steps in the direction of making jobs for contract labourer permanent, a promise which generated quite a strong support for the party during the elections in a large chunk of contractual workforce. The party had promised implementation of minimum wages and elimination of contract based jobs for works which requires more than 365 days work.
Labour Minister Girish Soni has instructed all government departments to send lists of contract jobs in each department.
“There are a large number of workers who have been working for more than five years but their jobs have not been regularised till now. Once we get the information we will chalk out on how to go about regularising these workers,” said the Labour Minister.
Sources in the Delhi Government said the Cabinet discussed the issue of regularising unauthorised colonies and an announcement should be expected in next few days.
In its manifesto the ruling party had promised regularising unauthorised colonies based on rates decided in March 2008.