The tussle between the BJP-run municipal corporations and the AAP Government worsened on Friday as employees of the civic bodies dumped garbage on several roads in East Delhi. Taking a sideswipe at AAP Government, Delhi Congress president and former Union Minister Ajay Maken blamed the BJP-led Central Government and the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi Government for the present financial crisis in all the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi.
Expressing concern over deteriorating civic bodies’ financial health, Maken said the MCDs did not have money even to disburse the salaries of the workers and the sanitation staff has gone on strike, leaving the streets of Delhi full of garbage. According to Maken, in the year 2012-2013, the Congress Government in Delhi had allocated Rs3,128 crore to the MCDs, but in the 201-2015 budget, the BJP-led Central Government’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley deducted Rs651 crore from the MCD funds and allocated only Rs2,477 crore to the three MCDs.
He said during the Congress rule, the BJP used to allege that the Congress Government was adopting a stepmotherly attitude towards the BJP-ruled MCDs, but the BJP Finance Minister has now betrayed the people of Delhi by making a drastic cut of Rs651 crore from the MCD budget. The former Union Minister said the Arvind Kejriwal Government also reduced the allocation for the MCDs in its vote-on-account passed recently by Rs62 crore, limiting it to Rs2,415 crore, which has resulted in the present impasse in the MCD.
He alleged that not only the election promise of regularising the services of the daily-wage employees has been completely forgotten, but the MCDs do not have the funds to even pay salaries to the daily-wage employees. He said funds for carpeting the roads before rains, desilting the drains and covering the drains have been cut, and the budget for covering the drains in the North Delhi MCD has been cut from Rs35 crore to Rs1 crore.