Sanitation solution will drive MCD polls

The elections will be fought on three key issues: sanitation, corruption and taxation, with residents underlining that cleanliness continues to be the most evocative issue among voters.

As the city’s civic bodies head to the polls after five-and-half-years on December 4, the elections will be fought on three key issues: sanitation, corruption and taxation, with residents underlining that cleanliness continues to be the most evocative issue among voters.

The MCD Civic Centre in New Delhi. (HT file)

The results of the election will be declared on December 7, bringing to close a tumultuous eight months for the civic body, which was supposed to go to the polls earlier this year, an exercise that was halted as the Centre decided to unify the three civic bodies. The unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) then underwent a detailed delimitation exercise that saw the city’s wards redrawn and whittled down, from 272 to 250.

The ultimate hope, said residents, was that the exercise results in a municipal body better prepared at handling Delhi’s laundry list of civic concerns.

A resident interacts with the civic body at every step of their life, from birth to death, but the touchstone of any municipal bodies’ responsibility is keeping a city clean, residents said. Whether it is lifting waste from a resident’s doorstep, cleaning the streets, or eventually processing that waste, the civic body is tasked with maintaining basic cleanliness and sanitation.

Chetan Sharma, general secretary of the Confederation of NCR Resident Welfare Associations called the city’s open garbage vats a “blot”.

“We are the country’s capital and removal of garbage from open vats is still inadequate. Which global city showcases open vats and garbage on its streets? Sharma said.

S Khan, general secretary of the Pocket A Sukhdev Vihar Residents Welfare Association, said that while waste-to-energy (WTE) plants were key in keeping a city free of the landfills, they must be kept at a distance from residential neighbourhoods.

“Many new WTE plants will be coming up and parties must ensure that they are away from habitation,” he added.

Residents also pointed out that key civic infrastructure has decayed over the past couple of decades.

BS Vohra, who heads the East Delhi RWA Joint Front, said that the overall civic infrastructure has deteriorated which has led to damaged colony roads and annual waterlogging, and a time-bound accountability mechanism needs to be formed by both parties.

The three erstwhile civic bodies consistently fared poorly in annual sanitation reviews.

In the 2022 Swacch Surveskshan, the South corporation was ranked 28th, the East corporation 34th, and the North corporation 37th among 45 cities with a population of over a million.

Similarly, the three garbage mountains, which blot Delhi’s skylines and pose severe health risks, have also drawn residents’ ire, with welfare groups arguing that the new civic body should make flattening the landfills a key part of its new agenda.

Mohammad Zafar, who lives in the Mulla colony near the Ghazipur landfill, said, “We always have to bear the stink from the landfill site. The groundwater in the area is yellowish and unusable,” he added.

Delhi produces over four million tonnes of garbage every year. Roughly half of this ends up in the city’s over-saturated landfills in Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalswa, underlining a major problem that the new civic body will need to tackle head-on.

The three landfills store over 28 million tonnes of garbage, with inadequate amounts being removed every day, presenting a persistent nuisance for residents of surrounding areas.

Increased tax rates will be another crucial voting issue, said residents, arguing that the hikes were only compounding the effects of rising prices and interest rates.

After delimitation, areas that were earlier under the erstwhile North MCD have been allotted 94 wards, while East Delhi will send 61 representatives to the house of councillors. Taxation levels in these jurisdictions have now been brought at par with those under the South civic body, with large-scale hikes in fees for general trade licenses, health trade licenses, storage license and a marginal rise in property taxes.

Brijesh Goyal, who heads the Chamber of Trade and Industry said such hikes over a short span are bound to affect electors’ choices.

“Every form of licensing fee has gone up and at the same time there is harassment while obtaining them. There is corruption at every step and we will demand that these levies be rolled back,” Goyal said, also adding that parties also need to consider that thousands of shops are still sealed.

Since 2017, a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring panel has sealed 9,426 properties in Delhi. Of these, 4,481 were closed citing unauthorised constructions, and the rest over “misuse”. Over the next five years,3,766 were unsealed, but the rest remain locked.

Praveen Khandelwal, who heads the confederation of All India Traders, called for a “more transparent tax regime”.

“Traders are harassed at every step,” he said, also arguing that Delhi’s markets and commercial spaces needed an overhaul.

Finally, allegations of rampant corruption in the erstwhile civic bodies will be a key factor for a resident at the ballot box.

Delhi’s civic bodies were plagued with corruption and irregularities at the executive and political levels for years.

Residents bore the brunt of corruption while availing civic services, even as councillors have been caught on video seeking bribes.

In July this year, six MCD officials were suspended by Delhi’s lieutenant governor on charges of graft and for “abusing their official position”.

Municipal audits have regularly cited irregularities to the tune of several thousand crores, while the cash-strapped civic bodies have seen umpteen strikes by staffers and disruptions due to unpaid salaries.

Harbaaz Khan, a resident of Khayala, for instance, said that corruption was rampant in the building department.

“I filed complaints against illegal construction taking place in the area, but the files were closed without action,” he added.

To be sure, these are problems that have plagued the Capital for several years. But, for the past three elections - in 2007, 2012 and 2017 - the BJP emerged unscathed, winning comfortable mandates each time. What remains to be seen is if Delhi’s electorate regards these voting factors as cause enough to break the BJP’s three-term stranglehold and welcome in a new party to helm Civic Centre.