The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) on Friday extended the AAP Government’s freebies on water and power to the residents of its area as well. Besides, the Chief Minister and MlA from New Delhi Arvind Kejriwal also took oath as member of the Council.
The Pioneer, on March 13, was the first to report that households in lutyens’ Zone too will get 20 kilolitres of free water per month along with the 50 per cent cut in power bills for consumption up to 400 units. The schemes together is set to cost the civic agency Rs22.5 crore, which the Delhi Government will reimburse.
“We have backdated (w.e.f. March 1) the implementation of this scheme, which means residents will get the benefit from their March bills itself. However, the proposal was approved only on condition that the Delhi Government would return us the full amount as it would do to every other stakeholder involved in giving out these facilities,” said an NDMC official.
The issue of auctioning the iconic Taj Mansingh Hotel was, however, deferred in the council meeting.
Slashing tariffs by half for those who consume up to 400 units is set to benefit as much as 73 per cent of the total consumers in NDMC areas. The civic body itself distributes power in areas under its jurisdiction and has 70,000 consumers out of which 44,000 are domestic consumers. From the total domestic consumers, the power subsidy is going to benefit 32,000. Besides, there are 29,000 metered water connections under the NDMC out of which 9,000 households consume up to 20 kilolitres per month. Provisions for both the schemes are being made in NDMC’s 2015-16 Budget, which is going to be released on March 25.
Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and two others took oath as member of the council. NDMC chairperson Jalaj Shrivastava administered the oath of membership to Kejriwal, who then administered the oath to Delhi Cantonment MlA Surinder Singh and Secretary of Directorate of Education (DoE) Punya Salila Srivastava at a council meeting.
“NDMC has both kinds of areas under its jurisdictions where VVIPs live and where common man lives. I urge you to focus equally on all the areas,” he said at the swearing-in function.
The Chief Minister was later given a presentation on the functioning of NDMC, its hierarchy and brief about its various departments.