Bedi, BJP fail to gloss over MCD’s failures in Delhi

Whether Kiran Bedi’s barb at AAP Government in Delhi was a ‘cheap shot’ or not, coming from the Lt Governor of Puducherry, has embarrassed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in the saddle of the Municipal Corporation of India (MCD) for the last 10 years.

Bedi, after being trolled for tweeting about the "stinking, jamming mess" in Delhi and making an oblique appeal to residents to vote for BJP to "make Delhi work", chose to be quiet on Tuesday on the issue. But the damage was done.

In 2012, the BJP had made 44 promises to the residents of Delhi. But as this report in The Hindu revealed, over 60% of them are yet to be fulfilled.

With the campaign for the MCD poll scheduled for April 23, moving into the last lap, the BJP-led MCD finds itself at the receiving end of mounting criticism :

• Supreme Court panel indicts MCD on parking lots: The Supreme Court-appointed Bhure Lal Committee pointed out that the MCD had failed to carry out its recommendation to demarcate parking lots even after a year and repeated reminders
• Thirteen years and ₹12 crore later, MCD's web portal is yet to become functional: Even after spending ₹12 crore in 10 years, the municipal corporation has not been able to ensure a fully functional website. And if that's not shocking enough, the civic agency is planning to spend ₹58 crore more on completing the project it mooted as early as 2000. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has admitted to spending ₹1 crore per month on maintenance of the MCD web portal
• 3,400 MCD staffers facing graft cases: An RTI query has revealed that there are as many as 4,400 corruption cases pending against about 3,400 MCD employees. From peons and drivers to assistant engineers and deputy directors, there are cases against people holding all kinds of posts in the civic body though the maximum cases are against junior engineers
• Delhi municipal bodies paid ₹1,942.82 crore to ghost pensioners: The chief auditor of municipal accounts found that the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi, and one of its successor bodies, North Delhi Municipal Corporation, paid a whopping ₹1,942.82 crore pension over 18 years to their employees without finding out if the beneficiaries were still alive or not
• Corporations run Ganda Bharat Abhiyan: Keeping up the pressure on civic agencies to give meaning to “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan”, the Delhi High Court pulled up the three municipal corporations for unhygienic conditions across the city, calling it “disgraceful”
• The dirtiest city: As many as 407 people died in 2015 because of dengue and more than 300 during 2016. If anything the MCD appears to have fought a losing battle against mosquitoes, stagnant water and garbage dumps.