NEW DELHI: The BJP on Thursday alleged a scam in desilting of drains in the national capital by the AAP government’s agencies and demanded a CBI probe into it.
In a press conference, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva alleged that “corruption and loot of the AAP-led Delhi government and the MCD is responsible for the deaths of three civil services aspirants in a flooded basement library of a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar and other rain related incidents in the city”.
No immediate reaction was available from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on the BJP’s allegations.
Sachdeva said that in 2022-23, the Delhi government’s Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) department, Public Works Department (PWD), Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and Delhi Jal Board (DJB) removed three lakh metric ton, two lakh metric ton, two lakh metric ton and 40,000 metric ton silt from the drains.
“By this estimate in 2024 these agencies should have lifted around 8-9 lakh metric ton of silt from the drains. I want to ask the Delhi ministers Atishi, Saurabh Bharadwaj and MCD Mayor Shelly Oberoi, if drains were desilted this year, where did the removed silt go,” Sachdeva questioned.
He claimed that there was no record of trucks carrying silt removed from the drains of reaching Singhola in Narela where it is dumped or the three landfill sites in the city.
“There is a scam of hundreds of crores of rupees in the drain desilting exercise,” he alleged demanding a CBI investigation into it.
The entire city is in a “mess” due to this “loot” of crores of rupees. Strict action need to be taken against officials concerned and the role of the AAP dispensation should also be probed, said the Delhi BJP president.