MCD: why?

There are the occasional obvious questions that stare at us, but until someone brings them to public notice, we don?t even see them.

There are the occasional obvious questions that stare at us, but until someone brings them to public notice, we don’t even see them. One such query is: why is there a Municipal Corporation of Delhi? Now that the Delhi High Court has raised this question in response to the MCD’s utter failure to prevent wedding receptions at farmhouses — an activity that is unlawful and yet regularly conducted with an astounding indifference to the law — it seems the most obvious question to ask. And it’s not only the matter of the MCD twiddling its thumbs as the band plays on. Whether it is in the matter of demolishing illegal constructions in the city or even ensuring that illegal buildings aren’t constructed in the first place, the MCD authorities have, in real terms, done nothing.

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The sudden jolts of activity that one sees with bulldozers are exactly that: sudden jolts of activity spurred by the courts. As for what the MCD’s role exactly is, one would not be exaggerating when one states that it has become a conduit for corruption, a platform where citizens willing to bend the rules of the law — whether to set up a commercial venture in a residential area or to quietly construct an extension to a house — pay a price to get the ‘job’ done. The high court has not minced its word in its observation last week. “Enough is enough. You tell your bosses that we’ll not take it anymore. And you know the consequences of invoking Section 490.” Section 490 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act states that the government can dissolve the MCD’s elected body if the corporation fails “to act in accordance with the provisions of the legislation”.

One doesn’t have to be an urban planning expert to know that the MCD has become more of an impediment than a facilitator to development and maintenance of the capital of India. There’s been enough warnings for the MCD. As the high court says it bluntly now: shape up or ship out.