Delhi’s 70 Assembly Constituencies are set to get an additional Rs.253 crore apart from the MLA-LAD fund, yet its residents are far from being pleased. What is now worrying the Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) and civil society activists is the possibility of politics and corruption being dragged to every doorstep. Besides, instead of the money, they demand the government should focus on structuring the existing local systems.
The Aam Aadmi Party government announced its flagship Swaraj Fund Scheme while presenting the Budget for 2015-16. Under this, every Assembly segment will be entitled to a separate fund for carrying out developmental work in the area. The prioritisation of works to be taken up will be decided by residents themselves through mohalla sabhas.
When The Hindu spoke to various RWAs, it found that all of them felt the need for greater clarity in the scheme.
“A scheme like this is welcome, but will the government tell us who will get the money and how will it be allocated? They plan to divide every constituency in eight-nine zones, each of which will have one RWA. Which means a single zone will have nearly 20,000 people. In such a case, how effective can mohalla sabhas be? ” said Atul Goyal of United Residents & RWAs Joint Action.
Almost all of them are threatened by the concept of decentralisation of power with mohalla sabhas. “The government wants to kill existing RWAs and create one that will have its own people. Speaking of Dwarka, which has more than 401 RWAs, 350 group housing societies and 52 DDA flats, the government has not reached out to any of them. A few sabhas that were held had people unknown to us. There is no clarity of how the scheme would be implemented,” said Mukesh Sinha, president of the Federation of Dwarka Cooperative Group Housing Societies
Santosh Mangal, general-secretary of Ksheer Sagar CGHS, Patparganj, had attended public meetings the government held in 11 constituencies for consultations over making the budget. He believes the whole concept is being eaten up by political parties to please the voters.
“These sabhas mostly have party workers and supporters. Public meetings are welcome, but they shouldn’t be packed with cadres as we do not want politics to be brought to our homes. Other major parties are also getting into various local associations. Earlier there was Bhagidari, now there is Swaraj…it’s all for namesake.”
