Little from BJP’S ’17 manifesto put in place
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for the last 15 years, announced a new “charter of commitments” on Friday in its bid for a fourth consecutive term in the municipal government. However, the party is yet to meet several commitments it made in its manifesto for the 2017 municipal elections, some of which featured in its earlier manifestos as well.
From schemes to provide subsidised meals, no hike in taxes, and scrapping factory licences to building plan relaxations and a dhalao (garbage receptacle point)-free Delhi, BJP’S 2017 “Sankalp Patra” made several ambitious promises to garner support ahead of the elections. The most prominent promise was the one to arrange a direct transfer of funds from the central government to end the then trifurcated civic bodies’ financial crisis as well as their confrontation with the state government. However, despite the reunification of the three municipal corin
porations in May 2022, the civic body continues to face salary delays and liabilities of over ₹21,000 crore.
To be sure, BJP functionaries did request the Union government for a one-time financial package to make the corporation financially viable, but to no avail.
In its 2017 manifesto, the party had made several promises that also featured in the 2012 manifesto, but so far, none of them have been implemented. The party had promised social security cards for the underprivileged and the unorganised sector, health cards to access medical
facilities, auto-rickshaw and taxi stands with restrooms for drivers, virtual medical consultancy from primary health units -- none of these saw light of day.
Some of the promises did see partial progress, though, such as issuance of vending certificates to street vendors, smart classes select MCD primary schools, digitisation of municipal services and closure of dhalaos, along with a push for solar energy in municipal buildings. “Around 71,000 certificates of vending have been issued. But there are at least 250,000 vendors in the city. The promise of regularising weekly markets has not been met,” Arvind Singh, who heads National Association for Street Vendors, said.
While several municipal services have moved to a new online portal in line with the BJP’S 2017 poll promise, residents complain about glitches and the need to visit municipal offices.
Atul Goyal, who heads United RWAS Joint Action said the system is not foolproof. “While there has been some improvement, we see that the digitisation is still a work in progress.” Former East MCD mayor Nirmal Jain said, “We were left to struggle with the salary crisis over the last five years. Our income was half of the expenses. East Delhi was the most neglected area and we could not start these schemes but unification should solve this problem.”