Sisodia files status report of files submitted to LG

NEW DELHI: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday presented the status report of the files submitted to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal in the Delhi Assembly, which contained various categories and an annexure on the shortage of staff.

The report runs into 89 pages and is divided into two sections. The first part of the report details all the major policy proposals or matters sent by the Aam Aadmi Party-led government, that have either been rejected, are pending for approval by the LG, or have been substantially delayed.

It also includes a list of 35 policy proposals sent by 14 different departments of the Delhi government in the previous financial year, for which approval was either pending, delayed or denied altogether.

It has different sections like education, health, PWD, services and others.

The report noted that nearly two out of three schemes were not approved by the LG regarding education.

"Students passing out of school from lower socio-economic strata are unable to access higher education, due to their inability to afford the fee of higher education institutions and the government passed a scheme to give loans which is pending with the LG for past one year," noted the report.

In health-related schemes, the report noted that the LG halted all the eight schemes. Four of the schemes were later passed and other four are still pending.

Some of the important pending schemes are like Health Insurance Scheme, Reduction of Shortage of Staff in Government hospitals among others.

The report also noted that due to a delay in approval, the setting up of 500 Mohalla Clinics in government schools aiming to give health benefits to the students got hugely affected.

The report added, "In Part II of this report, details are given of the total sanctioned posts of all Departments of the Government of NCT of Delhi, along with the details on the positions that are filled and those that are vacant. Since the judgment of the high court on August 4, 2016, it is the legal position that all issues of 'Services' are within the purview of the LG.

"Therefore, ensuring that all vacancies within GNCTD are filled is the responsibility of the LG. Vacancies have an impact on the execution of various projects of any Department, as the inadequacy of staff bottlenecks both the deliberation and the implementation of policies. Therefore, while appraising the performance of the office of the LG, an important indicator is the vacancies in every department."

The second part further lists 45,504 vacancies across 21 departments of Delhi government, which fall under the purview of the LG. The highest number of vacancies, 34,970, are in the education department which is headed by the Deputy CM.