Taking a serious view of several deaths and disruptions in normal life in the city caused by severe waterlogging and flooding this monsoon due to “complete collapse of civic infrastructure”, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has directed Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to submit a monthly report on the inspections conducted by senior officers of the state of civic infrastructure in the Capital.
In a written communication to the Chief Secretary, Ashish Kundra, the Principal Secretary to Saxena, said the LG has advised that an “institutionalised mechanism be put in place for regular inspections” by senior officers of the facilities under their charge. “It would help them get a first-hand feel of the core problems being faced by the citizens and take corrective policy or regulatory measures. The Chief Secretary shall circulate a uniform format of inspection report to all departments and submit a monthly report on the number of inspections done by each officer,” read the letter.
The Arvind Kejriwal Government has blamed the bureaucracy for failing to desilt drains ahead of the monsoon season this year. This purported negligence led to frequent waterlogging and flooding whenever there was rain turning the entire city into another Venice.
Kundra also pointed out that even the Delhi High Court has taken a serious stance of the drains desilting issue, and has made “stinging observations”. “The LG has observed that this monsoon has seen the complete collapse of civic infrastructure, leading to unfortunate and avoidable deaths and great hardships to the citizens. The underlying problems are symptomatic of endemic neglect,” he has said in the letter.
“Drains have not been desilted for years, sewer lines are choked leading to flooding even in planned colonies,” he added.
According Saxena, all this points to a “complete absence of senior management oversight” in the city, Kundra’s letter said.
Sharing the LG’s directives on the issue, Kundra said all heads of departments (HoD), Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, or Additional Chief Secretaries need to “draw up a schedule of field inspections” and ensure that all assets or areas are inspected thoroughly.
“The inspection note of the Principal Secretary or Secretary of the department shall be submitted to the Chief Secretary with a copy forwarded to the LG Secretariat and the Minister-in-Charge,” he said.
According to Saxena’s directive, the inspection note should summarise the core problem observed with the corrective measures taken. The report should be annexed with geo-tagged pictures of before and after the intervention.
The communication to Kumar also fixes the frequency of inspections to be conducted by secretaries of the department concerned on a fortnightly basis while the HoDs have to do them on a weekly basis. The Principal Secretaries have also been advised to conduct inspections every fortnight.
The officers have also been directed to review the institutional mechanisms prescribed under various Central and State Acts and ensure that these are fully functional, the letter read. “Formulation of any rules, authorities, boards under these laws should be taken up within three weeks,” it added.
The LG also insisted that there should be a robust mechanism of field inspections at district level under the district magistrates (DM). The inspection notes need to be submitted to the Divisional Commissioner who shall then send a consolidated note to the Chief Secretary, Kundra said.
“District magistrates, SDMs and ADMs shall undertake inspection twice a week in areas of public delivery services, focusing on road infrastructure, drains, sewage management, education, transport, etc.
“The executive engineer, deputy directors, and other related officers shall invariably accompany the DM during the inspections. The inspections should cover all categories of settlements such as rural, urban, planned areas, JJ colonies, unauthorised colonies, etc,” the letter says. The DMs have also been asked to interact with the residents welfare associations in their respective areas once a month to find out the problems faced by local people and get them resolved.
In a response to the letter, AAP in a statement said, “The LG is repeating the things which have been said dozens of times by the elected government. The Urban Development Minister had directed the Chief Secretary to submit the timelines for desilting of drains by various agencies like MCD, PWD, DDA, I&FC, NDMC etc. But instead of ensuring desilting, the CS was busy making excuses for not submitting the timelines.”
The party stated that the note by LG is of no consequence because the monsoons are almost over. “If LG was really serious about desilting, he should have taken action against the officers. Now when LG has himself accepted that desilting was not done and tenders worth crores did not bear any result due to corruption, why has LG yet not taken any action against any of the HODs? If LG has accepted that sewers were not desilted, why is there no action against officers of DJB who did not do their duty,” the party said.
