Delhi: North corp writes to CM for more funds

Just ahead of the impending monsoon season, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has cried foul over its shortage of aid and questioned the government’s funding criteria. Ritam Halder reports.

Just ahead of the impending monsoon season, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has cried foul over its shortage of aid and questioned the government’s funding criteria.

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Leader of the house Mahender Nagpal has shot off a letter to the chief minister, asking how the South body, that has only four zones, gets Rs 140 crore as yearly sanitation grant while the North civic body, with six zones, is allotted Rs 100 crore under the same category.

“I have written to the chief minister that we are being given less funds under the head of sanitation. In financial year 2012-13, we were given R81 crore while in this year, the amount earmarked is Rs 100 crore. The South corporation, on the other hand, had got Rs 137.5 crore in the last financial year while this year they have been given Rs 140 crore. We have six zones and we cater to over 60 lakh residents of the Capital. We should get more funds to provide the people with better facilities,” Nagpal told Hindustan Times.

“We don’t have any issues with the South corporation getting more funds than us. There is no competition there. However, we, too, want and need more for better preparations during the monsoon,” he said.

With tall claims of desiltation of drains and control rooms in place for the incoming monsoon, it is a matter of weeks before the monsoon preparedness of the three civic bodies is put to test.

The Delhi High Court last year had reprimanded the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) — which was split into three civic bodies — for not living up to its claims of speedy progress in de-silting the drains of the city.