The Hindu : New Delhi News : Moratorium shifts focus back on development

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 18, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Moratorium shifts focus back on development

Sandeep Joshi

`All important projects and developmental works had been put on the backburner since the drive began almost six months ago'

NEW DELHI: With Parliament passing the Bill seeking a one-year moratorium on the ongoing sealing and demolition drives in the Capital, senior officials and political leaders in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi are a much relieved lot as they can now turn their attention to development projects and other important issues that have been pending for the past many months.

Since the demolition drive began almost six months ago, followed by sealing of illegal shops operating from residential areas, all important projects and other developmental works have had to be put on the backburner as senior civic body officials were busy carrying out the twin drives and filing status reports before courts.

Not only did the civic body have to divert its manpower, it also had to pool its resources to carry out the drives, affecting normal functioning of the MCD. In fact, almost all meetings of the MCD House and the Standing Committee that were held since the exercise began discussed only the drives and their fallout and could not take up matters related to development works.

During the past six months, the civic body has failed to clear any major development project. For instance, the ambitious project to construct multi-storey parking lots at South Extension, Karol Bagh and Greater Kailash is yet to be finalised, while rehabilitation of "tehabazari" holders who were removed from Chandni Chowk and outside Jama Masjid is still pending.

Similarly, with monsoon just a month away, de-silting of drains is way behind schedule, while privatisation of sanitation work is yet to be implemented in all the civic zones.

Despite warning from the Supreme Court, the MCD has so far not succeeded in speeding up the work on the slaughter house project at Ghazipur in East Delhi.

The other two crucial issues on which the MCD authorities need to act urgently are transfer of the rural board's fund from the civic body to the Delhi Government and poor collection of property tax that is affecting the civic body's finances.

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