The Delhi High Court on Wednesday criticized the Delhi government’s “freebie” policies in the aftermath of the recent basement flooding in city’s Rajendra Nagar area wherein three civil services aspirants lost their lives.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said because of the “freebie culture”, the government has no money to upgrade the infrastructure, particularly the city’s drainage system, in face of the exploding population of the city.
The high court hinted at asking a central agency to probe the incident and directed the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) commissioner, deputy commissioner of police concerned and the investigating officer of the case to appear before it on Friday.
“You are permitting multi-storey buildings but there is no proper drain. Your civic authorities are bankrupt. If you don’t have money to pay salaries, how will you upgrade infrastructure? You want freebie culture. You’re not collecting any money, so you’re not spending any money,” the ACJ orally remarked during the hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking a “high-level” probe into the three deaths.
He continued, “We ask MCD to carry out projects. Any project above Rs 5 crore they say will be approved by Standing committee. But there is no Committee. Yesterday, one plan they said has to go to Cabinet. What’s the next date of caninet meeting, nobody knows! You have to decide on this freebie culture. There is a population of 3.3 crore people in this city whereas it was planned for 6-7 lakh people. How do you plan to accommodate so many people without upgrading infra?”
The bench opined, ‘Multiple institutions are working together in Delhi, which is a beautiful strategy because no one agency is ever responsible. You Just shift blame onto one another and no one takes accountability’.
The bench expressed dismay and identified multiple issues, including unauthorized infrastructure operations and financial constraints preventing the civic bodies from improving infrastructure.
The bench said a “strange probe” was going on with Delhi Police taking action against a man who drove a car outside the coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar here but not acting against MCD officials.”Have they lost it? What is Delhi Police doing? What are its officials doing? This is a cover up or what? Has some official been held accountable for the incident till now? We are telling you, once the responsibility is fixed on officials, no such incident will ever happen in future,” the bench said. It also directed the authorities to remove all encroachments on drains in the Rajinder Nagar area by Friday.
“This is such a serious incident. There is infrastructure failure in the city at a large scale,” the bench said, adding that the situation is absolutely chaotic at the ground level and wondered if these civic authorities even exist at the ground level.
The court said the construction of multi-storey buildings was being allowed but there was no proper drainage. The court further opined,
‘There is a disconnect between what people need and what they are being provided’.