BJP councillors hope for a central package
NEW DELHI: A day after the Lok Sabha passed the bill to reunify the three civic bodies, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) municipal councillors in Delhi on Thursday said that they were hopeful that the central government will release a special financial package of ₹16,000 crores for the MCDS.
BJP councillor Narender Chawla, a former mayor of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, said they had sent a report detailing the current financial status and the problems with the existing structure to the Union home ministry, and added that they were hopeful that the Union government will provide a onetime relief package.
The report was compiled by the three civic bodies and was sent to the Centre on March 24. HT has seen the report.
“We are hopeful that a committee will be constituted to act as a bridge between the existing set up and the new corporation. The liabilities on the three corporations continue to rise. At the time of trifurcation in 2012, the liabilities were ₹1,831 crore and the commissioner had requested a one time grant to clear it. The state government at that time gave us a loan instead and we are still paying interest on it in the form of deductions in basic tax assignment. Similar situation should not be repeated,” Chawla said.
The poor financial health of the MCDS was among the major arguments made by the BJP to support the reunification of the corporations. However, the Aam Aadmi Party has maintained that the merger was just a ploy by the Bjpled central government to delay the MCD elections that were scheduled to be held in April.
SDMC standing committee chairman Col (retd) BK Oberoi said a simple merger will not solve the problem, as the MCDS have a huge deficit that needs to be cleared before unification.
According to the report sent by the MCDS, the total liabilities of the three civic bodies amount to ₹16,415 crore, of which ₹3,474.2 crore are owed to Delhi government on which 10% annual interest is being paid. The liabilities related to pay and pensions of the employees stand at ₹1,694.7 crore, contractors are owed ₹1,665.9 crore and other arrears stand at ₹9,580.7 crore.
The AAP and the Congress said even a unified corporation will incur losses.
AAP MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak said the real problem is not money, but corruption. “If the Delhi government can increase its budget from ₹25,000 crore to ₹75,000 crore over the past seven years, why can’t the MCDS do it? There is a lot of leakage in the system,” he said.
Abhishek Dutt, state congress vice-president and a councillor in SDMC said the bill cannot remove the powers of the Delhi finance commission which are vested in the Delhi government. “The tax share will continue to come from the state government, and the tussle will remain as it is. They could have gone back to pre-1990s model of a metropolitan council to fix accountability but this (unification) solves nothing.”