BJP's Satish Upadhyay says government yet to give funds to MCDs

NEW DELHI:BJP's Delhi president Satish Upadhyay and the three mayors on Monday accused the AAP government of playing politics over the release of funds to the corporations.
At a press conference, Upadhyay asked if the government could deploy a special task force to lift garbage, why couldn't it just release funds? “Delhi government has a habit of throwing tantrums. They have claimed all dues have been cleared. Then why has the fourth Delhi finance commission not been implemented? Why have dues under the third finance commission not been released? The government owes corporations Rs 3,000 crore,“ said Upadhyay .

He added the Delhi government was misleading people by claiming on social media that PWD had cleaned the mess. “ A corporation truck makes at least 4 trips. So if we calculate the number of trucks deployed by PWD, then at least 400 trips should have been made and over 1,000 metric tonnes of garbage disposed. But PWD deployed 93 trucks and lifted just 93 tonnes of garbage over 19 trips and left out North and South Corporation areas,“ said Upadhyay .

East Delhi mayor Harsh Malhotra claimed his corporation managed to dispose of 934 metric tonnes over 222 trips in two days. North's mayor Ra vinder Gupta alleged chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had wrongly claimed the municipal commissioners had confirmed receiving funds from the government.

“North's commissioner P K Gupta wrote to the CM office on January 29, listing our dues of Rs 1,731 crore under the third DFC and demanding the release of Rs 650 crore to pay salaries,“ he added.

“South Corporation is financially stable, but even we have been facing hardships in initiating development projects. The funds must be released as the two corporations can't clear the backlog,“ said Ashish Sood, South Corporation's leader of the house.

Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, however, said around 80% of the garbage had been lifted from 248 dhalaos. “PWD and DJB did it over 60 hours,“ he said in a press conference.