HC tells civic body to clean up Lajpat Nagar

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed civic bodies to start cleaning the entire Lajpat Nagar area from Thursday morning and to maintain it that way as a “test” of their “efficiency and ability” to keep the city clean.

A bench of justices BD Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said it wanted to see if the civic bodies, the Delhi Jal Board, Public Works Department and DDA were “capable” of maintaining cleanliness in a model area “or else we will disband the corporations”.

“We want to see your capacity... Start cleaning from tomorrow (Thursday) morning,” the bench said. During the hearing, it had said, “people have no civic sense and the corporations are not doing anything” to maintain cleanliness. The bench, however, made it clear the exercise has to be carried out without displacing or “ejecting” any street vendor and without neglecting to clean the other areas of the national capital.

It directed the petitioner NGO Nyay Bhoomi to inspect the area (Lajpat Nagar) and submit its report before the next date of hearing on April 8.

It also told the corporations that it wants a “joint action plan on disposal of garbage” which has to be the same for all of them.

The court had on January 28 directed the corporations to adopt a 2001 order issued by then commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and said appropriate circulars be issued by each of three MCDs. It had also directed them to implement the 2001 order and sought status reports from the MCDs.

The court had also directed the civic bodies to indicate the status of their review on whether more safai karamcharis were needed.