3,000 streets to be repaired over next year: MCD mayor

MCD plans to revamp 3,000 roads in Delhi's inner colonies and back lanes using ₹15,000 crore. Mayor Oberoi aims for visible changes within a year.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will be recarpeting and repairing around 3,000 roads in inner colonies and back lanes over the next year using ₹15,000 crore, MCD mayor Shelly Oberoi said in a press conference on Saturday.

Mayor Shelly Oberoi. (File)

Oberoi added that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) administration in the MCD has kept a provision of ₹1,000 crore fund for road maintenance and another ₹500 crore under the mayor’s discretionary funds, which will be utilised for the city’s road revamp. “We have already sanctioned these funds for the road to construct nearly 3,000 streets. The focus of our budget during the next year will be sanitation and infrastructure development. The streets will be repaired and maintained under this project to ensure that no potholes are visible,” she added.

Oberoi said that the administrative file work for these projects will take around two to three months and changes will be visible on the ground in the next six months. “The project will be fully executed and clear change will be visible in one year. Our focus will be infrastructure development, besides our core areas of education and health sector,” she added. Oberoi did not specify which roads have been selected under this project.

He added that the mayor’s claim of relaying 3,000 MCD roads with an available budget of ₹1,000 crore is laughable. “There are over 10,000 km of interior roads under MCD and most are lying depleted and in need of urgent repairs,” he said.

The tenure of the mayor is also drawing towards an end with the election for the new mayor likely to be held in April. Oberoi said that the over the last one year, the opposition BJP has not allowed the new administration to function by creating roadblocks. “The standing committee is still not in place and over the last one year, BJP has not allowed the house of councillors to operate peacefully even on one occasion. They could not do anything in MCD over the last 15 years, and they are not allowing the MCD to function just like the Delhi government is being obstructed,” she added.

The Public Works Department maintains the 1,400km-long road network of the city where roads are wider than 60ft, even as the local bodies are responsible for the upkeep of inner colony roads that are less than 60 ft width. The Delhi statistical handbook 2023 states that MCD oversees that maintenance of 12,703.95 km of roads, out of which 512.47 km falls under erstwhile East Delhi, 7438.30km under zones of South Delhi and 4753.18km under the North Delhi zones. The financial crisis was particularly acute in the North and East Delhi.