MCD wants staff held liable for ‘disastrous plans’

After two of its projects — the high-end toilets complex and the government to citizen kiosks — flopped, the works committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has asked the lieutenant-governor to hold accountable the officials who suggested these.

After two of its projects — the high-end toilets complex and the government to citizen kiosks — flopped, the works committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has asked the lieutenant-governor to hold accountable the officials who suggested these.

HT Image

On Tuesday, works committee chairman Jagdish Mamgain wrote to the lieutenant-governor saying that the MCD has been receiving a lot of flak over the failure of the projects, which were originally suggested by an MCD official.

The first project dealt with construction of more than 200 high-end toilets with coffee shops/restaurants on top. Out of the 200 envisaged, only eight could be built — even these toilets ran into trouble. The MCD, on Monday, then decided to buy out these fancy toilet complexes from the private developers.

The second project was to set up 8,000 G2C kiosks across the city, which would have provided information on railway timings, tourism and other vital information on services provided by the Delhi Development Authority, MCD and the Delhi government. Later, the number was reduced to 2,000. Even that could not be implemented. The civic agency then managed to set up a few kiosks but they are non-functional at present.

"Many of the administrative officials are brought in through deputation. They bring in new plans but leave after a couple of years. If their project fails, the MCD incurs loss, but the officials cannot be booked because they have already left.

There should be a mechanism through which such officials can be held responsible for their disastrous plans," said Mamgain.