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Assembly elections push reforms under carpet

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MAY 8. Reforms in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi seem to have taken a back seat mainly due to political pressure in the civic body in view of the Delhi Assembly elections due in November.

According to highly-placed sources in the MCD, senior bureaucrats of the civic body have been given "specific instructions'' not to launch any fresh reform -- which they have been doing for past one year now -- and that they go into "election mode''.

``Reforms, no doubt, are for the betterment of the city. At times they are bitter for the people in the short run and could prove disastrous for our party in an election year,'' argued a Congress Councillor.

``No reforms for the next few months,'' a top MCD official said. After the Congress came to power at Town Hall and Rakesh Mehta took over as the Municipal Commissioner, the face of MCD has changed for the better due to the series of reforms in urban governance including house tax, toll-tax, e-services, solid waste management, decentralisation of power and increasing financial rights of officials and reorganisation of the planning wing.

Insiders in the civic body said in second phase of reforms, the Engineering, Health, Education and Horticulture wings of the MCD were the main target. "The entire system has collapsed in these Departments and a drastic reform is required,'' the official said, adding: "Getting rid of the tender mafia was the other item on the agenda of reforms.''

That these wings of the MCD have becomes a den of corruption has become more evident after the latest annual report of the Audit Department which exposed scams worth crores in these Departments. It is understood that senior officials of these Departments have been lobbying for Mr. Mehta's removal, in whom they see a threat to their corruption rackets.

Conceding that the Engineering, Health and Education wings of the MCD required drastic reforms, a senior Congress Councillor said they did not want to disturb the equilibrium in an election year. "We will take them one by one after the elections,'' said the Councillor.

However, the Leader of House in MCD and Standing Committee Chairman, Ram Babu Sharma, argued that this year they would put more emphasis on cleanliness and garbage removal. "We want to make Delhi a neat and clean city,'' he said.

Barring the denial of Mr. Sharma, administrative reforms have created lot of opposition among the Councillors as transfers and postings have become very difficult now. "I cannot even be instrumental in the transfer of a beldar or a safai karamchari,'' alleged Satbir Sharma, a Congress Councillor.

"The Commissioner has left us nowhere. This has to be changed,'' he demanded.

It is these Councillors and several MLAs who have mounted a pressure on the party leadership to ensure that administrative reforms were given a go by at least till the Assembly elections were over. "After this, the Lok Sabha polls would be held in less than a year. All this will bring the MCD back to square one,'' officials said.

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