As Delhi battles an outbreak of dengue and chikungunya, it turns out that our elected representatives — councillors and MLAs — did not take up the issues of fogging, blockage of drains or garbage pile-up seriously in ward committee meetings and Delhi Assembly sessions for the last two years.
As per data by the Praja Foundation report on civic services provided by the municipal corporations and the Delhi government, and deliberations by councillors in the ward committees and MLAs in the Assembly sessions from January 2014 to December 2015, nine MLAs and 15 councillors never raised any civic issue.
While some councillors raised the issues intermittently in the ward committee meetings, the MLAs never talked about lack of fogging or poor garbage collection in any of the Assembly sessions.
The report comes as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the BJP-led civic bodies are blaming each other for this year’s spike in dengue and chikungunya cases in the city, which have claimed 18 and 14 lives till date, respectively.
The report said that the number of complaints of blockage of drains increased by 220 per cent, mosquito menace and fogging complaints went up by 194 per cent and garbage collection complaints saw an increase of 23 percent between 2014 and 2015.
Issues that mattered
For the MLAs, however, construction of buildings and repair of roads were priority and they raised these issues the most.
Similarly, maintenance of municipal property and solid waste management were the most taken up issues by the councillors.
Rising number of dengue cases is not new. In 2014 and 2015, Delhi saw 995 and 15, 867 cases respectively.
No relief
Despite the rising figures, the councillors raised the issue of fogging only 158 times, while the MLAs never raised it. As per the report, most of the old Delhi area, which comes under North Corporation’s City Zone, saw the worst representation. There are seven councillors and one MLA representing the zone and they raised the least number of issues.
Matia Mahal MLA Asim Ahmed Khan never raised any civic issue in the Assembly. When The Hindu tried contacting Mr Khan, he was not reachable.
Similarly, people residing in the Rohini zone, which includes Rohini, Pitampura, Sultanpur Majra, had complained the most about lack of fogging and increasing mosquito menace. But their MLAs never raised the issue in the Assembly sessions.
“In 2015, we all were new and were learning the ways of government functioning. But this year, these issues are our priority. We are carrying out fogging ourselves as municipal corporations have failed,” said Bandana Kumari, AAP MLA from Shalimar Bagh, which come under the Rohini zone.
