After AAP's question, MCD says budget not yet passed
Feb 03, 2023
New Delhi [India], February 3 : After the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) raised questions, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Friday said the budget for the financial year 2023-24 has not been passed and is still under consideration.
In a statement, MCD said, "It is informed that the Budget 2023-24 has not been passed yet and the same is still under consideration. The consideration process will shift to the deliberative wing, once, Mayor is elected in the elections scheduled for February 6, 2023."
MCD has also said that the Budget exercise will be completed as per DMC Act.
"The Corporation will complete the budget exercise latest by February 15, 2023, as statutorily mandated under DMC Act, 1957," the statement added.
This MCD statement came after, the AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj in a press conference said that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) "backstabbed" Delhiites by making officials unethically pass the MCD budget before the AAP won the civic body elections.
Bharadwaj said, "The Budget of the MCD is a very important document that gives the detailed break up of how much money the elected government hopes to spend in the fulfilment of its promises. This is where all the planning of the team is reflected and then work begins in mission mode to deal with the problems that the people of the city are facing. But what has happened now is the betrayal of the citizens of Delhi by the BJP."
Despite losing the elections to the Aam Aadmi Party, the BJP-ruled central government illegally passed the MCD Budget through the officials that it uses to control the Corporation, he said.
"This is the level to which the BJP can stoop to retain power. The people voted them out of the MCD, but now through the bureaucracy that the central government controls, they have passed the MCD Budget," Bharadwaj added.
He questioned that If this is how the MCD is to be run, then what was the point of conducting elections? The bureaucrats of the MCD who have passed the Budget should be asked to fight the MCD polls the next time, the AAP leader said.
"This is a betrayal of the people of Delhi. It is AAP that has been elected by the people to run the MCD, but the people passing the Budget are bureaucrats of the MCD, what sense does this make?" he added.
