The national Capital is under the siege due to multiplicity of agencies which has not only affected developmental work but also led to a lot of confusion among people, top officials and politicians in the city. The national Capital has five different civic bodies in addition to an elected Government. Residents are always confused about to whom they should approach for resolving their issues.
All the five civic bodies such as the New Delhi Municipal Council, three municipal corporations and Delhi Cantonment Board and even some departments of the Delhi Government perform similar roles in the areas of their jurisdiction leading to complete chaos and delay in finishing project in stipulated time.
Citing multiplicity of authorities as a major roadblock in development and creating a "total confusion" in the national capital, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia , while speaking at a recent event organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce, said that Delhi cannot become a smart city till the fighting among multiple agencies stops.
"We have a Delhi that belongs to the DDA, a Delhi that belongs to LG sahab, one Delhi that is of the Delhi Police, one Delhi that belongs to the NDMC. You need to bring clarity for becoming a smart city. There is hardly any coordination among these agencies for the welfare of Delhiites and they are fighting among themselves. In such circumstances, converting the present landscape of Delhi into a smarter city would not be possible," Sisodia said.
Taking about this, Praveen Kumar Tripathi, former Chief Secretary of the Delhi Government said, "Lack of coordination poses a 'big problem' in carrying out developmental work in the city. Explaining it further, he said that construction permit is given by the municipal corporations, while DDA allot land for the same and it all take long time due to improper coordination. "Agencies only focus on completing their own work . In one such instance, Delhi Metro during construction of tunnel reduced the drainage size and that affected the overall system in the areas", he said.
Tripathi said that multiplicity of commands causes complexity and leads to skepticism as with functional overlap leads delays, lack of accountability and unresponsiveness.
A senior Corporation official said that there is more than a single authority to carry out the same work ranges from constructing roads to run hospital, dispensaries and issuing birth and death certificate. Many of the work of the municipal corporation overlap with the Delhi Government as both construct and maintain roads and clean drains, he said.
The official further said that corporations collect toll tax at the borders, advertisement revenue and property tax while the Delhi government collects excise duty, service tax and value added tax on the services and commodities sold. "Running hospitals anddispensaries, managing water supply, maintain the drainage system, collecting tax, running schools and constructing roads are some of the functions which is performed by multiple agencies in Delhi that ended in skepticism and complete chaos," he said.
The MCD and Delhi government construct and maintain roads and clean drains. Every year due to lack of coordination among the agencies which is responsible to provide civic amenities in the city, people suffer with dengue, malaria and chikungunia outbreak with water-logging being the 'Achilles Heel' of the national Capital. The civic agencies responsible for maintaining drains failed every year to synchronise their efforts to desilt drains before the onset of monsoon, instead keep themselves busy in passing the buck on one another.
Drains in the city are maintained by the Public Works' Department (PWD), Irrigation and Flood departments of the Delhi Government and the three municipal corporations. Instead of desilting drains before the approaching monsoon, authorities remain busy in shifting their responsibilities knowing well that vector-borne diseases proliferate during rainy season as water accumulates in part of the city owing to choked drains, said an exasperated official not willing to be quoted.
