L-G office blames Saurabh Bharadwaj for delay in enhancing MCD Commissioner's financial powers

New Delhi: Following the rebuke by the Delhi High Court on Friday, the office of the Lieutenant Governor has accused the AAP-led Delhi government and Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj of delaying the approval of a proposal to temporarily enhance the financial powers of the MCD Commissioner from Rs 5 crore to Rs 50 crore.

This delay, officials argued, has hampered some crucial projects related to education, health, and sanitation, as the Standing Committee of the Corporation has not been constituted for over a year.

On Friday, the Delhi High Court came down heavily on jailed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Delhi government, along with the Aam Aadmi Party-led Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), for their failure to provide textbooks to over 2 lakh students studying in the MCD schools in the national capital.

“... Even as the city suffers and the courts have been forced to take up issues of education, health, and garbage disposal in the city,” the officials said.

The L-G office also said that upon being made aware that much of the work at the MCD, including disposal of garbage at the landfill sites and providing textbooks to the MCD schools, were stalled due to the non-constitution of a Standing Committee and the resultant non-competence of the MCD Commissioner in releasing funds, Delhi L-G V.K. Saxena had on March 6 recalled the file pertaining to the delegation of increased financial powers to the Commissioner, pending with Bhardwaj since October 9, 2023.

Despite repeated reminders, Bhardwaj has allegedly failed to send the file to the L-G.

“However, upon being asked about the same in the Delhi High Court on Friday, the GNCTD deviously chose to mislead the court by saying that the file had not been cleared as the Chief Minister is in jail,” the L-G office said, adding that the file is pending with Bhardwaj since October 9, 2023, and was never sent to CM Kejriwal, who was taken into custody only on March 21, 2024.

Moreover, it has been alleged that the delay has led to a backlog of crucial civic functions, including the distribution of textbooks, procurement of desks for schools, and supply of health equipment and medicine to the MCD hospitals and health centres.

The officials claimed that the MCD is facing challenges in finalising contracts for waste collection and processing, as projects exceeding Rs 5 crore require clearance from the Standing Committee. This has resulted in delays in waste management initiatives and compliance with NGT directives.

“In addition to these, the MCD is finding difficulty in finalising/engaging concessionaires for South, West, and Central Zones to deal with day-to-day collection of municipal solid waste and its transportation to the processing facilities.

"The work of rate/agency contract for setting up a processing facility at Narela-Bawana is also held up due to project costs being more than Rs 5 crore. The work of bio-mining which has to be completed in a time-bound manner as per NGT directions has also been affected severely due to non-finalisation of an agency for completing the balance work,” the L-G office said.