MCD: Citizens distressed as projects in limbo amid political feud between AAP and BJP
New Delhi: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is struggling to form a proper House and several issues have arisen due to it. Citizens are in distress and projects are on hold due to the ongoing political feud between AAP and BJP.
The AAP won 134 of the 250 wards in the MCD polls held in December. The BJP managed to win 104 wards. The election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor was stalled twice last month following ruckus among AAP and BJP councillors in the MCD House.
Former South MCD Mayor Narender Chawla commenting on the situation explained that the people of Delhi are suffering, they made AAP win and are now facing the consequences of it. It is the ruling party’s responsibility to get work done but they are only stalling the House. The deliberative wing’s purpose is to create sanctions, policies and look at the needs of their constituents but because they aren’t functioning properly yet so pipeline projects are stalled, the garbage disposal is becoming an issue, parks are not being maintained and street lights are non-functional. The deliberative wing has to look after these things.
Echoing his concerns, Former North MCD Mayor Jai Prakash said, “There are several day-to-day issues that are being stalled because of the non-functional deliberative wing, be it cleanliness, hospitals, salaries, and more. People need the deliberative wing for day-to-day issues, citizens go to their councillors for the smallest issues, be it filing forms or getting garbage collected from their areas.”
With more and more delays in forming the House, citizens are also distressed. Praveen, a 57-year-old, who lives near the Okhla landfill said, “They are playing politics as garbage keeps increasing in the landfills, both parties go and fight with each other in the house but keep failing to discuss the problems plaguing Delhi currently”.
Citizens have complained that because the deliberative wing is not functional, their councillors are not able
to take forward any of the complaints which keep piling up.
Despite the special officer being in place instead of the deliberative wing, citizens are having issues with resolving their immediate ground-level issues such as garbage disposal, functioning of street lights, maintaining parks and horticulture in their neighbourhoods, and stray animals in their areas. Several pipeline projects have also been put on hold due to the absence of a deliberative wing including parking projects that were already ongoing or parks that had been planned out properly.
MCD is one the largest civic bodies of India, the civic body provides a range of civic amenities and services to approximately 20 million citizens of Delhi. The civic body has 12 zones and covers approximately 1,397.3 sq km of area in the National Capital Region. MCD offers a range of different services, from disposal and maintenance of the garbage system in Delhi to registration of birth and death certificates, building and maintaining parks, parking lots, community centres, etc, issuing several licences, maintaining primary schools and several hospitals, etc for citizens of the National Capital.
The civic body has two main functioning wings: the Administrative wing; formed by government employees and led by a MCD commissioner and the Deliberative/political wing; formed by elected councillors of the 250 wards that the civic body consists of. The Deliberative wing is integral to the functioning of the civic body, they are in charge of MCD policies, sanctions, and several other factors. The deliberative wing forms the House of MCD where all elected councillors can put forth any proposals, issues, and projects of importance to their wards. The House is led by the Mayor.
