'City govt didn't pay us to remove silt from drains'

BJP asks Chauhan to step down over waterlogging issue

While the Delhi High Court has pulled up all the civic agencies for failing to prevent waterlogging in the city and has given them week for amending the same, it seems the agencies have nothing more than blame-game to offer.

A day after city’s PWD minister Rajkumar Chauhan held civic bodies responsible for the massive waterlogging in the city last Saturday, the leaders of the BJP-ruled municipal corporations on Thursday demanded Chauhan’s resignation alleging that the minister was telling a blatant lie while claiming that ‘the city government paid Rs 3 crore to the three corporations for removing silt accumulated in the drains on PWD roads’.

“This is one of the series of lies the Delhi government ministers have been uttering for covering up their failure. The Delhi government has not paid anything for freeing drains on roads of silt that were transferred to PWD. We challenge the minister to prove that they have paid any amount under that head,” said Subhash Arya, leader of House in South Corporation while addressing a joint media conference of leaders from the three municipal corporations. The BJP leaders alleged that the Delhi government ministers are swindling money in name of cleaning silt from drains, but they are putting the blame on the civic bodies for the cover-up.

Holding PWD responsible for the Saturday-like inundation, the BJP leaders highlighted that PWD has jurisdiction over all the major roads (60 feet wide and more), and till date, the department has not been cleared them of silt.

As a result even their ‘good work’ of de-silting the internal drains in colonies has gone waste as water from all the small drains in the colonies could not flow out as bigger water outlets in PWD roads were blocked because they weren’t cleared of accumulated
silt.

Standing committee chairman of South Corporation, Rajesh Gehlot, questioned the facts put up by the PWD to make his point.

“The PWD minister claims that 5,47,198 metric tonnes of silt was taken out from their drains. But on the other hand, they blame that the corporations did not allow them to dump the silt at the sanitary landfill site. If that is the case, then let the minister show us the place where PWD has dumped the silt,” said Gehlot.

The leaders advised that the only way to end the waterlogging mess in the city is by ending the multi-authority system in the city and handing over maintenance of drainage system to one agency.