Civic agencies take on Dikshit government

Strongly condemning the statement made by PWD minister Raj Kumar Chauhan about the three municipal corporations, their leaders in a joint press conference on Thursday said residents are facing waterlogging problem because of the dirty politics of the Delhi government.

Strongly condemning the statement made by PWD minister Raj Kumar Chauhan about the three municipal corporations, their leaders in a joint press conference on Thursday said residents are facing waterlogging problem because of the dirty politics of the Delhi government.

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They said the government is “solely responsible” for the situation that arises during the monsoon and blamed it for dividing the unified MCD into three to weaken the local body and suppress its powers.

“Neither funds nor resources are provided to the corporations to improve the sanitation system in the city. The corporations are also facing shortage of land to develop sanitary landfill sites. It is the government’s responsibility to provide land to the corporations for disposal of solid waste but it has failed to do so,” leader of the house in the North Corporation Mahinder Nagpal said.

A day before PWD minister Chauhan had blamed the three municipal corporations of not cooperating in keeping the city clean.

Chauhan had said the three corporations — especially the South Delhi Municipal Corporation — did not allow the PWD to dump muck taken out of the drains before the monsoon at their landfill sites. “We had paid the corporations Rs 3 crore to use their landfill sites. But the three MCDs never cooperated,” Chauhan said.

For the first time, several residential areas and arterial roads in Lutyen’s Delhi witnessed heavy waterlogging.

On Tuesday, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) ordered an audit into the city’s drainage system. The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked the three corporations, the NDMC and the PWD to ensure that all drains in the Capital were cleared of silt in a week.