NEW DELHI: The BJP goes to the MCD polls today, hoping for a three-fold return in the newly-trifurcated body. Its slogan is BJP For a Corruption Free MCD. But the party’s record of Delhi’s stewardship has been riddled by scams. The Congress alleges `14,100 crore were provided to the BJP-ruled MCD in the last five years by the Centre and the Delhi government, but several projects remain pending. `469.78 crore was sanctioned for 16 multi-level parking lots under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, to be completed by March 31, 2012. It remains incomplete. Work in only seven of them is underway. Meanwhile, BJP’s main plank against the Delhi and Central governments is over price rise and corruption, and it hopes the fallout of CWG and 2G scams will help it win again.
It’s no secret that migrant votes are part of any party’s poll calculations. In February 2006, the UPA undertook a revision of guidelines pertaining to regularising of unauthorised colonies, that mostly house such voters, and paved the way for regularising more than 1,500 colonies that had come up in Delhi in the last 30 years. “Despite Urban Development Ministry issuing a notice in 2009 asking these colonies to submit layout plans for regularisation, MCD’s delay in clearing them has left it in limbo,” says Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Urban Development.
MCD schools are a scandal. Of the 10 lakh students in its schools, over 2.5 lakh have no benches: they sit on floor mats due to a shortage of over 70,000 desks. No new desks have been procured. “In 2009, as HRD minister, I called BJP leaders in MCD with a proposal to give all MCD schools on public-private-partnership mode. I spoke to some businessmen to take these schools on PPP, develop and maintain infrastructure, and run them during the day without changing teachers or management. In the evenings, they could be used for skill development courses, which would ensure recovery of costs. They refused,” says Sibal.
The condition of the schools is so poor that Delhi High Court in August 201 observed that children in MCD schools are deprived of necessities like drinking water, toilets, power, computers, and even permanent buildings. This despite around `1700 crore of its annual spend of `7,700 crore being given to education.
The ‘ghost employees’ scam has been plaguing MCD ever since a case was registered in 2009. Around 22,853 fictitious employees were paid salaries for four years, amounting to `100 crore a year loss. A probe by Delhi police was ordered by the High Court in June 2010, but MCD kept delaying it by providing different figures each time on the number of such employees. But Delhi BJP chief Vijender Gupta alleged the scam was perpetrated by Congress. “When we came to power, we instituted biometric attendance, which revealed the ghost employees.”
The teacher recruitment scam, that broke in October 2011 is another example of corruption. 1,600 teachers at MCD schools were to be hired on contractual basis. After inviting online applications, a list of selected candidates was released on September 20 and 24. However, the list had names of people who had applied for posts more than once, or were repeated. Seven teachers and a middleman was arrested. But, says Gupta, “Teacher recruitment is done by the service selection board under the Delhi government.”
There is no doubt the MCD has a poor track record on spending public finds. Work is pending on 216 toilets, coffeehouses and 1,000 waterless urinals. Despite 900 cars being added to Delhi’s roads every day, MCD in the last five years has been able to add parking for just 900 cars. The Congress claims that of the 41 parking lots planned by MCD in the last five years, only one is operational.
