New Delhi: The AAP on Sunday blamed the BJP-led MCD for not cleaning the 95 per cent drains of Delhi under its ambit right before the onset of monsoon even when there is a history of waterlogging in the city during the rainy season.
Senior AAP leader Durgesh Pathak addressed a press conference claiming there is a requirement of at least 1,000 JCBs to desilt the drains of the city and the MCD which only has around 50 JCBs has not even started the process of renting the JCBs.
Taking a jibe at the BJP, Pathak said that the BJP is very fond of JCBs generally, but in this case it has completely failed to address the problems of the citizens which has resulted in complete misgovernance in civic issues. He added that it is high time for the BJP-led MCD to deploy a fleet of JCBs in order to get all drains smaller than 60-ft cleaned and desilted immediately.
He said, "It is important to bring this dismal state of affairs to public notice, of how the BJP-led MCD is failing to fulfill its basic responsibilities. If due process had been followed, the process of cleaning out these drains, which come under the BJP-led MCD, should have been completed by now. But it is appalling to note that the work has not even been started."
The leader shared the fact that the previously trifurcated MCDs — North, South and East combined together did not have 50 JCBs under its possession and henceforth it should be imperative for the MCD to start with hiring the JCBs.
Pathak blamed the BJP for gambling with the lives of lacs of innocent people and urged them to stop playing politics around such issues for the sake of the lives of the citizens. He appealed to the BJP-led MCD to immediately begin the process of the cleaning and desilting of all drains measuring 60 foot or less across the state.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in a statement said that the civic agency has chalked out plans to complete the work of desilting all drains before June 15.
MCD has an adequate number of equipment/machinery for taking out silt from the drains and well trained personnel to carry out the work in a prescribed manner. Owing to this, the Corporation is all
set to complete the work in a proper way within the fixed timeline, it said.
Providing details about the ongoing desilting work, Amit Kumar, Director, Directorate of Press and Information, said that the civic body has so far removed about 60,000 metric tonnes of silt from various drains, completing about 66 per cent of the total target and remaining work will be completed by June 15. Kumar said that the silt taken out from the drains is being sent to the landfill site and its monitoring is being done through RFID tags. The entire process is fully computerised and there is no manual interference. He said that the MCD is fully committed to provide better and improved civic amenities to the citizens.
MCD has also requested PWD, DSIIDC and Irrigation & Flood Control Department of Delhi Government to complete desilting work in all the drains falling under their jurisdiction before monsoon as all the drains in the city are interconnected. The timely desilting of drains by these agencies will help prevent the menace of water-logging faced by the people during the rains.