The Hindu : New Delhi News : Question mark over pace of reforms process

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 18, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Question mark over pace of reforms process

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, AUG. 17. While the initiatives launched by the Chief Secretary, S. Regunathan, to check corruption have generally been lauded, the Delhi Government has come in for criticism for losing focus of the developmental agenda. Major projects are either hanging fire with the various Central agencies or within the Government for months together putting a question mark over the pace of reforms.

The Sheila Dikshit Government had stormed back to power on the developmental agenda plank and with the promise of accelerating the reforms process with more vigour. However, with almost nine months into its second term, the Delhi Government is still trying to step up the reforms that have been stalled for some reason or the other. Be it the Delhi Government or the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the general feeling in the Capital is that a lot was being compromised for political reasons putting on the backburner issues that need immediate attention and implementation. For instance, despite court orders, the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, succumbed to pressure from vested interests and dairy mafia and stalled action against them by the Corporation. Similarly, again under pressure from her party MLAs, she decided to refer the MCD (Second Amendment) Act 2004, aimed at striking at the roots of the builder mafia, to the Select Committee.

As for the power sector, the situation might be better but far from comfortable. While the private distribution companies have been allowed to go scot-free, the seriousness of the administration in dealing with the power and water problems could be gauged from the fact that during the recent interaction with the MLAs on these two issues, the Principal Secretary (Power), a charge held by Mr. Regunathan and the Special Secretary (Power), Arun Goyal, were not present. Their absence from the meeting along with that of the MCD Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, went unnoticed by even the Chief Minister.

On the other hand, nothing was being done to ensure that the Plan funds of the MLAs for developmental works in their constituency were released on time. With already six months gone in the current financial year, only Rs. 66 lakhs has been released to the MCD by the Finance Department out of the Rs. 2 crore fund. Some of this money was pending since the last financial year. A majority of the MLAs are of the view that it will take another two months to finalise and allocate work for this Rs. 66 lakh amount and if rest of the money was not released soon, it could remain unutilised creating a serious developmental gap. Similarly, there is no word on the fate of the dozens of flyover and underpass projects that had been lined up for the second phase but are still hanging fire. A majority of these projects are pending with the DDA Technical Committee for some reason or the other for months together without any concrete action. There has been little or no effort on part of the Delhi Government to get these projects cleared so that work on them could begin immediately. The Kalandi Kunj by-pass project in South Delhi is also lying in a limbo for the past several months due to differences between Raj Nivas and Delhi Government. The privatisation of maintenance of the 48-km Ring Road stretch has also been stalled for quite some time for mysterious reasons. The administrative reforms that had been taken up with full vigour in the previous tenure by the Sheila Dikshit Government have failed to move with the same momentum in the second tenure. All efforts of the Delhi Cabinet to outsource major infrastructure projects including construction of buildings and ISBTs at Dwarka, Sarai Kale Khan and Narela has failed to take off due to influence of vested interests that have managed to stall this far reaching move. "The Government needs to carry out second-generation reforms in various sectors. For this, the pace of development has to pick up and concentration should be on carrying out inspections of field works and field offices. Otherwise mounting pressure to perform could prove to be the undoing of the Government,'' a senior official remarked.

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