Proposal for granting financial power to MCD commissioner pending with UD Ministry: LG Office

New Delhi [India], April 28 : The AAP-led Delhi Government and particularly, Minister (UD) Saurabh Bhardwaj have been sitting for more than seven months over the MCD's proposal to temporarily enhance the financial powers of the MCD Commissioner from Rs 5 to Rs 50 crore, officials in the Lieutenant Governor's Secretariat said.
Upon being made aware that much of the work at MCD, including the disposal of garbage, at landfill sites, and lack of budget for MCD schools and hospitals, due to the non-constitution of the Standing Committee of the corporation and resultant non-competence of the MCD Commissioner for release of funds, Delhi LG, VK Saxena, invoking Rule 19(5) of ToBR 1993, had on March 6, 2024, recalled the file about delegation of increased financial powers to the Commissioner, pending with Minister (UD) Saurabh Bhardwaj since October 9, 2023.
However, the Minister instead of sending the file within three days as stipulated by Rule 19(5), irrespective of the hardships being faced by the people of Delhi due to inaction by MCD, chose to sit over the file and continues to do so.
However, upon being asked about the same in the Delhi High Court, the GNCTD deviously chose to mislead the court by saying that the file had not been cleared due to the Chief Minister being in jail, the officials said.
"But the fact remains that the file is still pending with Saurabh Bhardwaj since October 9, 2023, and was never sent to the Chief Minister, who was taken into custody only on March 21, 2024," they added.
Despite three reminders being sent to him on March 15, 28 and April 2, 2024, Bhardwaj did not send the file to the LG through the Chief Minister, as the case should have been.
Section 202 (C) of the DMC Act defines the financial powers of the Commissioner MCD. At present, with the approval of GNCTD and LG, the MCD Commissioner has been vested with the financial power of Rs 5 crore only.
All projects above Rs 5 crores are essentially to be cleared by the Standing Committee. As the Standing Committee has not been in existence for the last one and half years, various important projects related to health, sanitation and education are held up, resulting in depriving the benefits of the scheme to school children and the public in general.
To deal with this exigency, MCD on September 18, 2023, put up a proposal to UD Department, GNCTD for enhancing the powers of the MCD Commissioner from Rs 5 crore to Rs 50 crore on lines of powers of the Principal Secretary of GNCTD.
This was proposed to be done only till such time that the Standing Committee is constituted, as a temporary measure. This proposal has been pending with the GNCTD - Minister (UD) for consideration for more than the last 6 months.
It will not be out of place to mention here that MCD in the present scenario is not able to discharge important civic functions, like the distribution of notebooks, procurement of desks for primary school children, supply of health equipment and medicine for hospitals and health centres, the statement from LG Secrtariat read.
In addition to these, MCD is finding difficulty in finalising/engaging concessionaires for South, West and Central Zones to deal with the day-to-day collection of municipal solid waste and its transportation to processing facilities. The work of the rate/agency contract for setting up the processing facility at Narela-Bawana is also held up due to project costs being more than Rs 5 crore.
The work of bio-mining which has to be completed in a time-bound manner as per NGT directions has also been affected severely due to the non-finalisation of the agency for completing the balance work, the statement added.