JOIN USCity suffers as politicians play blame game on funds
Cash-strapped civic bodies and disruption of civic services in the city dominated proceedings of the Delhi Assembly, which cleared its interim budget this week.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party refused to bail out the municipal corporations, saying that the Centre has refused Rs 600 crore in grant to the local bodies in the city.
Imploring the three BJP legislators, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “We should all go and meet the (Union) Finance Minister. Tell him that Congress, BJP and AAP are here, now give us money.”
The AAP government told the BJP-run MCDs that it cannot give grants or even loans because it itself is facing a shortfall in budget. This prompted the mayors of the three MCDs to protest outside the Delhi Assembly.
The North and East corporations are particularly badly hit and haven’t been able to pay their staff for the last three months.
Delhi government claims that the financial situation is not good as there was a deficit of Rs 4,000 crore in the revenue target during the last one year, the period when the city was being run by the BJP-led Union government.
Since AAP is running the state government and BJP is ruling at the Centre, both parties have shown eagerness to blame each other for the fund crunch.
“He (Kejriwal) suggested to the mayors to approach the BJP government at the Centre for seeking fund for Delhi government. He assured them that if the Central government grants the funds, they will be transferred to them within hours,” a senior government official says.
The official adds that Deputy CM Manish Sisodia will meet the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to seek funds.
While returning the attack, Delhi BJP questions AAP government’s intentions to resolve the deadlock.
Vijender Gupta, leader of the BJP legislature party, says that AAP government didn’t table Fourth Delhi Finance Commission’s report during the two-day Assembly session.
According to Gupta, the report is gathering dust for the last two years due to which all the three corporations are facing a funds crunch.
Government inaction
“The commission had submitted its final report on April 5, 2013, but due to government inaction under Congress regime and under subsequent AAP rule, it has not been implemented so far,” Gupta says.
But the ruling AAP has asked the government to order a probe into the functioning of civic bodies, saying that the BJP has shunned the responsibility of managing the affairs of the three municipal corporations in Delhi, which it has been running since 2007.
Just when the East corporation employees were protesting on the streets over non-payment of salaries, Sisodia told reporters at Delhi Secretariat, “If they (BJP) cannot run the MCDs, they should give them to us.”
Bolstered by landslide victory in the recent Delhi polls, AAP leaders have already expressed their desire to contest municipal elections in 2017.
AAP MLA from Chandni Chowk Alka Lamba says that the MCDs was subject to a large-scale ghost employees scam where 22,853 fake employees were allegedly paid salaries, which resulted in a financial loss of around Rs 100 crore every year.
The ruling party has also slammed the civic bodies for underutilisation of funds. AAP claimed the municipal corporations, on an average, could not spend even 40 per cent of the total allocated budget in 2013.
Citing a news report, the AAP in a press statement said, for combating dengue and malaria, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation only managed to spend Rs 18.8 crore against a sanctioned budget of Rs 45.5 crore.
With MCD elections in sight, Congress has also upped the ante by setting up a seven-member panel to look into the alleged irregularities in the civic bodies. The Congress that ruled the city for 15 years in a row now has no seat in Delhi Assembly.