Neglected East Delhi hopes polls bring winds of change
East Delhi has, for years, been locked in a perception battle. Yearning for an image makeover, several neighbourhoods on the east of the Yamuna river, among the city’s most congested quarters, have tried hard to shake off a picture of neglect which has solidified over the decades. This image has, in no small part, been aided by civic apathy. Residents hoped the formation of a dedicated civic body for East Delhi in 2012 would offer some respite from the indifference. It wasn’t to be.
Colloquially referred to as “Jamna paar” (across the Yamuna), east Delhi is spread over roughly 140 square kilometres, just 7% of the city’s land area, but houses around four million people — a fifth of the city’s population.
In 2012, three corporations were carved out of the unified civic body, with the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) earmarked for residents who lived beyond the Yamuna. Ten years later, those changes have been reversed and the corporations reunified, but in that time, there have been few improvements in civic amnesties at the ground level.
Overflowing garbage mounds, potholed roads, large stretches without streetlights, choked drains, and waterlogging after even small spells of rain, parts of east Delhi are still plagued by fundamental, problems that a bankrupt EDMC, perennially hit by protests from unpaid employees, was never able to solve.
EDMC was divided into two administrative zones (Shahdara North and Shahdara East Zone) and 64 municipal wards.
Documents accessed by HT show that before the three civic bodies were unified, EDMC’S budget estimate for the financial year 2022-23 was ₹4,735.77 crore. A former EDMC commissioner said the body’s liabilities far exceeded its income, with over ₹2,000 crore earmarked for salaries alone.
“EDMC kept fighting financial disaster since its inception. Employees hardly ever received salaries regularly and often protested by refusing to collect garbage,” said the former commissioner, asking not to be named.
“Almost 87% of the population in areas under EDMC lived in unplanned, unauthorised areas and contributed almost negligible revenue to the corporation. In effect, trifurcation left EDMC with more responsibilities, a bloated workforce, but few resources to fund the burgeoning expenses,” the former commissioner said.
An official who worked with EDMC for over six years on deputation said, “EDMC was in dire straits, and everyone knew about it. Contractors were reluctant to apply for tenders because they feared payment delays.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which governed EDMC during the body’s 10-year life, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has run the elected government for seven of those years, have blamed each other for the crisis.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “The AAP government was supposed to give the corporations ₹42,000 crore, according to the finance commission, but they tried to hinder the work of the civic bodies by not releasing funds,” Kapoor said.
AAP Delhi convenor Gopal Rai said the BJP “did nothing” in the
MCD and turned the Capital into a garbage dump.
But this blame game does not impress residents of East Delhi.
Ram Chandra Tiwari, 65, who runs an eatery in Shakarpur market near Laxmi Nagar, said: “I have been running this establishment for over 20 years. No matter who is in power, the situation in this market has been the same. Garbage accumulates from morning to evening, causing trouble to traders as well as to customers.”
Vijender Sharma, secretary of the Ekta Vihar Cooperative Group Housing Society, said civic services leave much to be desired. “Mcd-run parks are unsatisfactory and marketplaces do not have parking spaces,” said Sharma.
BS Vohra, president of the Federation of East Delhi RWAS, said most resident groups opposed the 2012 trifurcation, fearing an unequal distribution of resources.
“The unification will at least give financial stimulus, but only time will tell how much the situation will improve,” said Vohra.
KS Mehra, retired bureaucrat and the last commissioner of the unified MCD, said the EDMC was affected by a resource crunch.
“When you have one unit, the resources are pooled and they are spent as per requirements. East Delhi had the lowest revenue generation of the three corporations,” said Mehra.