The municipal bodies in Delhi have been ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since a decade now. And now, the party is set to continue for another five years.
Perhaps it’s the ‘referendum’ on Arvind Kejriwal for abandoning Delhi to campaign in Punjab and Goa, or perhaps it’s the citizens’ faith in a party that was able to remove all ‘corrupt’ incumbents, or maybe it’s the Modi wave. The BJP’s sankalp patra had images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah towering over the image of its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari. It even called upon Delhiites to transform the city into Modiji’s sapno ki dilli . The manifesto, like other parties, listed populist measures. It included promises of food thalis worth ₹10 under the Deendayal Antyodaya Rasoi Yojana, regularisation of temporary, services to JJ colonies and slums, among others. The focus was more on the discretionary functions of the civic bodies, rather than the obligatory functions.
Tread with caution
But the BJP needs to tread cautiously if it wants to maintain a hold on Delhi. It is imperative that the BJP works towards improving local governance and delivers on three areas.
First, citizen participation needs to be encouraged and institutionalised through ward committees. The sankalp patra promised that meetings of councillors, MCD officers and RWAs would be made mandatory. This arrangement may not be enough as all residents of a ward may not be affiliated to an RWA. To truly empower citizens, it is important to regularly hold ward committee meetings. This will decentralise governance and provide avenues for citizens to meaningfully engage with the MCD. Also, this should bridge the gap between citizens and the government while offering clarity to citizens about the functions of the civic bodies. In this regard, digitalisation can also be helpful. The MCD website itself is quite poor and not updated. Civic bodies in Delhi should learn from the Pune Municipal Corporation, for instance, and make the website more user-friendly.
Second, the civic bodies need a fool-proof plan to overcome the financial crisis. Not levying any new tax can come in the way of this. The property tax, which is the highest source of revenue for the civic bodies, has not been revised since 2002. The BJP must not block any move to raise property tax. Instead, it should promote it. Parking fee is minimalistic and promote use of personal vehicles. These could be hiked or levied on an hourly basis.
Avoid confrontation
Third, the civic bodies need to ensure cleanliness, put in place an efficient chain of solid waste management, and prevent vector-borne diseases. The sankalp patra contains no radical proposal on how to transform the state of waste management. Some concrete steps like amending the Cleanliness and Sanitation by-laws of 2009, in sync with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, and promoting source segregation and decentralised composting are needed. If Delhi is to become sapno ki dilli , the Swachh Bharat Mission needs to be taken more seriously.
There is no escaping the fact that the AAP is in power in Delhi. Ensuring good governance would require that the BJP-ruled civic bodies work with the Delhi government and avoid a confrontationist approach.
( Apula Singh is a Research Associate at Vision India Foundation)
