Cong attacks ruling BJP in Budget debate

Initiating the Budget discussion on the MCD on Tuesday, leader of Opposition in the House Jai Kishan Sharma alleged huge financial misdemeanour in the corporation due to the policies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

“There has been a wide gap between the expected income and actual income of the corporation in the Budget provisions in the last few years. The Municipal Commissioner expected an income of Rs 6,247.84 crore, which was increased to Rs 6,635.84 crore. However, with the income of Rs 1,848 crore in the past six months, it is unlikely that the target will be achieved. More focus and emphasis is required to achieve the target,” said the Congress leader.

Criticising the BJP for claiming that no additional burden was put on the people in last five years, Sharma said the rates of property tax, parking and toll tax had doubled and tripled in this phase. On the slow pace of progress of various infrastructure projects, he said the situation under BJP rule was so bad that only four rail underbridges (RUB) or road overbridges (ROB) could be completed in several years.

“Only around 20 to 80 per cent of the work has been completed at 11 RUB/ROBs. Even in the field of automated parking, we lag much behind,” said Sharma. He added automated parking consistently developed snags. Taking a dig at Mayor Rajni Abbi’s order not to carry out development work in unauthorised colonies of two wards, Sharma said the Mayor generally did not say “no” to anything but saying “no” to development work was not good for the city.