NEW DELHI: A couple of days after promising to empower resident welfare associations, AAP national convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday met with the representatives of the RWAs of Delhi. Kejriwal, during the interaction at the Panchshila Club, told them that they will be given the status of ‘mini-parshads’, if the party comes to power.
“Once AAP comes to MCD, RWAs will be mini-councillors of their areas, the public will run the MCD. RWAs will have financial and decision-making power on local matters like mosquito fumigation and pruning of trees. We had tried to organise Delhi into 3,500 mohalla sabhas, but BJP-run MCDs did not cooperate, and the whole scheme got obstructed; now we will actively involve RWAs in this. We will plan through extensive consultation, we will give powers to RWAs and keep correcting whatever mistakes come our way,” Kejriwal said.
The CM said that even before he formally entered politics, he believed in the need to decentralise governance. He felt that decisions that are for the benefit of citizens cannot just be taken at the secretariat level or with government officials.
“Sometimes we see the corporation rebuild a footpath or road thrice a year. But when we go to the corporation to get some work done, they tell us that they do not have the funds. So, the issue is not about limited funds, but about funds not being utilised to their optimum,” Kejriwal said.
Decision part of essence of AAP’s vision: Kejriwal
At the interaction at the Panchshila Club, AAP national convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal told RWAs’ members that his party had decided on the matter a long time ago, and this is also the basic philosophy of AAP. Any work at the local level needs to have the participation of the people that it will affect, he said. Ideally, even on a bigger scale, this is how projects should be executed by the MCD.
For now, let’s begin by allotting those projects which directly go on to affect the residents of a ward. His party wants to bring a system in which for work at a smaller level that can directly be done by the RWAs, MCD permission need not be taken.