The Hindu : New Delhi News : BJP questions 1,500-crore Yamuna cleaning plan

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Friday, Feb 01, 2008
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BJP questions 1,500-crore Yamuna cleaning plan

Staff Reporter

Demand to fix accountability in advance

‘The scheme is not in accordance with the Master Plan for Delhi-2021’
‘In the past, hundreds of crores of public money has been wasted’

NEW DELHI: Pointing out that Rs.1,800 crore has already been spent in two phases in the name of cleaning the Yamuna, Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan has questioned the rationale behind the announcement of a Rs.1,500-crore third phase now and demanded that accountability be fixed in advance so that this money too does not go waste.

“In the past, hundreds of crores of public money has been wasted and not an inch of the Yamuna has been cleaned,” Dr. Vardhan said, adding that despite such gross corruption the Delhi Government had neither punished anyone nor held anyone responsible for framing the policies that have led to wastage of Rs.1,800 crore. Instead, now in view of the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections, the Delhi Government is making false and misleading announcements every day, he charged.

For cleaning the river, a Rs.1,500-crore scheme has been announced and an agreement entered into with Engineers India Limited for this project.

But in the agreement nobody has been made accountable in case there is a wastage of public money and the interceptor and diversion scheme fails to yield results, he pointed out.

The BJP leader said the scheme was not in accordance with the Master Plan for Delhi-2021. Unless all the unauthorised colonies of Delhi are regularised and fitted with a sewerage system, no government scheme for cleaning of the Yamuna would be successful, he said, adding that this fact had also been admitted by the Union Urban Development Ministry and the Delhi Government in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court.

Since 18 drains fall into the Yamuna as it traverses a distance of 22 km in Delhi, Dr. Vardhan said numerous schemes had been framed by the Congress in the past to treat the water before it runs into the river. However, he charged, all these schemes had failed as they were only intended to spin money for the ruling party leaders.

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