For Delhi’s municipal corporations, one word came to dominate 2014 – Swachhata or cleanliness. The civic bodies’ primary responsibility is to provide sanitation services and with the Centre focusing on cleaning up the country, the corporations were forced to pull up their socks.
Though the Swachh Bharat campaign was launched on October 2, the three BJP-led corporations started their own cleanliness drives in June in preparation for the massive programme ahead. Streets were swept, garbage dumps cleared and publicity campaigns launched. Officers and politicians, including Commissioners and Mayors, were out on the streets for field visits and photo-ops with brooms.
There were endless meetings to get ready for the October 2 launch. After the campaign started, there have been weekly meetings with all stakeholders, including the Union Urban Development Ministry.
“We have been getting feedback from people that cleanliness has improved. We have got more garbage trucks, more staff and better supervision now,” said Mohan Bhardwaj, the chairperson of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s Standing Committee.
The Opposition Congress says the whole campaign has been an exercise in fooling Delhiites, especially since the Capital goes to polls in a couple of months. North Corporation Leader of Opposition Mukesh Goel refuses to understand what all the fuss is about.
“Keeping the city clean is our first responsibility. The BJP is claiming that Swachh Bharat is an achievement, but that means they have failed on cleanliness for the past seven years they have been in power,” said Mr. Goel.
Besides fingers being pointed at the primary job of the civic bodies – cleanliness, several other related issues and projects have either failed to see the light of the day or are lagging behind. While the civic bodies claim to have improved the sanitation services, it is still to settle the issue of finding more landfills even as the existing are outlived their utility.
While the unified MCD had set an ambitious target of constructing over three dozen multi-storeyed parking lots, most of them have remained on paper. Parking projects like one at Hauz Khas, which is yet to be made functional despite being inaugurated three years back, reflect the functioning of the civic bodies.
While the politicians can’t see eye to eye, officers say the Swachh Bharat Mission has meant all meetings and no work. A senior officer in the South Delhi Municipal Corporation said the meetings with Delhi Government and the Centre keep officials so busy that long-lasting improvements in the sanitation sector have not been possible.
“We are called for meetings even when the matter at hand has nothing to do with civic bodies. But, we are expected to attend anyway. This leaves us with no time to actually review the work,” said the officer.
In fact, the lack of time for routine work has forced the officials to work on Saturdays.
Meanwhile, the civic bodies have not been able to launch any major infrastructure projects this year. The SDMC is only one which is in a comfortable financial position as both the North and East civic bodies have been late on salary payments.
A BJP office-bearer in the North Corporation admitted that the revenue of the civic body was Rs.1,500 crore and expenditure on salaries alone was Rs.2,200. “How are we supposed to improve infrastructure without money,” asked the leader.
Former East Delhi Municipal Corporation Commissioner Manish Gupta went as far as saying the civic body was “financially unviable”. “The EDMC cannot survive without subsidies from the government,” said Mr. Gupta last month in his budget speech for 2015-2016.
However, there has been some movement on long-pending projects. Work has started on the Rani Jhansi Grade Separator, which had been stalled for seven years. The Kalkaji Hospital is nearing completion, though it has missed the December 2014 deadline.
