LS clears Bill to unify MCDs, Oppn questions timing, constitutionality
New Delhi: The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to unify the three municipal corporations of Delhi, was on Wednesday passed in Lok Sabha after over 4 hours of discussion with Home Minister Amit Shah attacking the Delhi government for the MCDs' financial ruin and the Opposition questioning the timing of the Bill.
Shah said that the Delhi government was giving step-motherly treatment to three MCDs and that not all of the corporations were equipped with "sufficient resources to discharge their responsibilities."
"The aim of the Bill is that the three municipal corporations should be made one again and one municipal corporation should take care of all the civil services across Delhi," he said, adding that the Delhi government had not allocated grants worth Rs 40,561 crore — as recommended by its 5th Finance Commission.
"The Delhi government has allocated just Rs 7,000 crore, due to which the MCDs have a debt burden of Rs 11,000 crore. If they had allocated the remaining over Rs 32,000 crore, MCDs would have a surplus of over Rs 20,000 crore," Shah said.
During the discussion, most Opposition members, including NCP's Supriya Sule and TMC's Saugata Roy, questioned the timing of the Bill, alleging that the Centre decided on this hours before the SEC was scheduled to declare the civic poll dates.
Members of the ruling party defended the Bill by saying that the government's decision is a visionary move for the holistic development of Delhi.
In total, 20 members belonging to both Opposition and ruling parties participated in the discussion. The members of the Opposition, who participated in the discussions include Congress party's Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Gaurav Gogoi, Manish Tewari and Ravneet Singh, TMC's Saugata Roy and Mahua Moitra, DMK's Kalanidhi Veeraswamy, YSR Congress' Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, Shiv Sena's Arvind Sawant, BJD's Chandrani Murmu, BSP's Kunwar Danish Ali, NCP's Supriya Sule (NCP), IUML's MP Abdussamad Samadani, CPI-M's AM Ariff and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi's Ravikumar.
Speaking for the Bill were BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri, Parvesh Verma, Manoj Tiwari and Nishikant Dubey, who were joined by JDU's Dileshwar Kamait. "When the issue of the trifurcation of MCDs was done in Delhi Assembly, then why was the Bill for unification brought in Parliament? It's against the federal structure to bring issues of corporations in the Parliament as Lok Sabha is meant for "nation-building" and not for handling the issues of corporations," said Sule.
Why only the issue of Delhi corporations is being discussed in the Parliament and not the issues of municipal bodies of other Union Territories such as Daman, Lakshadweep, etc, she asked.
Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, "The crux of this legislative document clearly indicates that this government has been hell-bent upon encroaching the jurisdiction of the state while undermining cooperative federalism."
Countering the Opposition, Shah said the Bill had been brought under Article 293AA (3b), which empowers the Centre to bring any legislation for the development of UT Delhi.
He said, "I'm saying it on record that we want to win every election through fair means and not by destabilising the government. Also, we are not afraid of anyone not even when we had just two members and not now, when we have 302 MPs."
