The Delhi BJP on Sunday accused the Delhi Government of having blinkers on for making inflated claims about the progress and prosperity of Delhi. Referring to Delhi Statistical Handbook 2013, which painted Delhi as the richest State in the country, Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel said facts state otherwise.
He said contrary to claims, nearly half of Delhi’s population lives in slums, JJ clusters and unauthorised colonies. “A few individuals might have struck gold but the city has more than 1,600 unauthorised colonies, 685 slums and 45 resettlement colonies according to Government official estimates,” Goel said. He also questioned how the Capital could be hailed prosperous when 72 lakh persons need to be covered under the Food Security Act.
“Can we call a city rich when half of its population needs highly subsidised foodgrains to surviveIJ” he asked, observing the Delhi Government has also tried to paint a rosy picture of public transport saying DTC services were availed by around 46.77 lakh daily average passengers during 2012-’13. “As per the joint study by Institute of Urban Transport (India) and Urban Mass Transit Company limited, the availability of public transport (buses and Metro) in Delhi per 1,000 people is a shocking 0.504. The average waiting time for all 517 DTC bus routes is 70 minutes because of the frequency of trips,” Goel said.