MCD to outsource management of 300 community centres

Despite very high demand for these spaces in Delhi, a large chunk of community centres run by the corporation remain severely underutilised.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is planning to outsource management of over 300 community centres and halls across the city to enhance their level of services provided to users, senior municipal functionaries said on Sunday during a review meeting also attended by chief minister Rekha Gupta and mayor Raja Iqbal Singh at Delhi Secretariat.

Delhi mayor and chief minister were at a review meet at Delhi Secretariat on Sunday. (RAJ K RAJ /HT PHOTO)

Singh told HT that the matter of maintenance of the community centres was taken up during the review and plans are afoot to run them on public-private partnership (PPP) mode while keeping the subsidised booking rates unchanged. “We are planning to run them on a PPP model which will significantly improve the service level. However, the booking rates would not be increased,” Singh said. Community centres and halls are built up properties available to the general public for arranging functions, marriages and social gathering at subsidised rates.

Despite very high demand for these spaces in Delhi, a large chunk of community centres run by the corporation remain severely underutilised. According to the MCD data, the corporation has 299 community halls, out of which 21 are non-functional due to maintenance and repair requirements. Similarly, all eight community centres are non-functional due to lack of demand for activities being run there by the corporation.

The acute crunch in human resources was also highlighted in the audit of community hall operations. A senior MCD official said the community centres face staff shortages. “Community workers form the backbone of the community services department. These workers are expected to help in operations from arranging water tankers to helping in bookings, dealing with operational problems to other maintenance works. We require 1,288 community workers and staff members for smooth operations but we face acute staff shortage as these positions are lying vacant. Outsourcing will help in plugging these gaps of resources,” the official added.

Further, the official informed that the operation and maintenance of all 15 swimming pools run by MCD are already outsourced and similar steps can be taken for community halls.

HT in February 2022 had reported that the audit of city’s community centres had found that 39 halls in south Delhi were booked for less than 10 days in a year, 48 were booked for 11 to 50 days, and 15 for 51 to 100 days. Only two units were used for 101 to 150 days while bookings for another two units went above 150 days in a year.

Besides shortage of human resources, other reasons cited for low utilisation of community centres and halls included inadequate arrangements for security and sanitation while kitchen and lighting fixtures were either missing or lying non –functional.