Cash-strapped civic bodies seek unification

NEW DELHI: The cash-strapped municipalities of east and north Delhi have approached the senior BJP leadership to demand re-unification of the three civic bodies in Delhi.

The North Delhi municipal corporation has not been able to pay its employees and the civic body’s standing committee chairman Mohan Bhardwaj on Wednesday claimed that the corporations have not received grants in aid for the last three years.

The north body has also written to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for immediate releasing of funds for the year 2014-15 along with the dues.

The situation of east corporation is equally bad. The body is running into losses of over `500 crore annually. Standing committee chairperson BB Tyagi said, “We are in the favour of unification because situation is going out of control. We have been able to pay salary to only 40-50 percent of employees for the month of January. We are facing problem in bearing monthly expenses. After trifurcation, the then state government had assured to give us grant of `421 crore. However, we were given between `325 crore as loan.”

Bhardwaj said all the three bodies, including the south Delhi municipal corporation, are unanimous in support of the reunification of the municipal body.

“We all need to think beyond individual performances and benefits. Recently, leaders of three corporations held a meeting in which the matter was discussed in detail. There was a consensus on the merger of three bodies. Later, we also met senior party leadership and handed over a proposal. The final decision is to be taken by the ministry of urban development,” he said. He said the leaders of the three bodies are also seeking a meeting with Kejriwal to discuss the problem in detail.

The then-Sheila Dikshit government had trifurcated the MCD in 2011.