Daily
Pioneer: New Delhi: Saturday, 06 February 2016.
As the
municipal corporations are crying over its empty coffers, sources informed this
reporter that more than Rs 1,000 crore
has gone down the drain on various civic projects.
The three
municipal corporations are splurging as much as Rs 65 crore over the
maintenance of their defunct websites. The three civic bodies spend Rs 12 crore
annually to maintain the website that has gone up to a whopping Rs 65 crore in
the last four years.
According to
an RTI response, the monthly expense for maintenance of e-Government project is
Rs 1 crore per month and which goes up to Rs 12 crore annually. The three
municipal corporations have spent total amount of Rs 65 crore on e-government
project till now.
If that was
not enough, a whopping Rs 225 crore was spent on constructing a multi-level
parking facility in posh Model Town area. The project has been a failure as the
facility has failed to serve its purpose due to its faulty design. The parking
was supposed to accommodate 110 cars and two-wheelers each. The North Delhi
Municipal Corporation had inaugurated the ambitious three-storey parking
project to ease parking woes in Model Town area, but the entry point to the
parking is so narrow that vehicle just cannot enter and hence the very purpose
of the parking has been defeated.
Similarly,
the South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s project to come up with a multi-level
parking in Hauz Khas area met with the same fate. The three-storey parking lot
was build at a cost of Rs 30 crore. The
area which was supposed to accommodate more than 360 cars at the same time
failed due to its faulty design. These
projects failed to generate any money as it could never become operational due
to its bad design.
Leader of
Opposition Mukesh Goel said projects’ failure showed incompetence of the BJP-led
municipal corporation, which has failed to carry out these costly projects. “It
shows incompetence of the corporation. There are so many projects where the
municipal corporation spends money but is unable to generate any sort of
revenue. It has come to such a pass that the workers have to protest to get its
salaries,” he added.
The
construction of Rani Jhansi Road grade separator is a never ending story.
Over18 years have passed and the Rani Jhansi Grade Separator project worth Rs
225 is yet to be a reality. The project was supposed to cost Rs 70 crore when
it was first proposed in 1998 but it met with certain hurdles due to demolition
in areas of Azad Market, tyre market and Modal Basti. The 1.6-km flyover, from
Filmistaan Cinema to near St. Stephen’s Hospital, was meant to ease traffic on
Rani Jhansi Road, but due to the delay in construction, the project has ended
up making traffic worse. The project has been hanging fire for the last 18
years.
The list
doesn’t end here. The Rs 209 crore Bijwasan road project is also biting the
dust. Under the South Delhi Municipal Corporations, the project was supposed to
come up by year 2012 but has failed to bear any fruit. The project includes
Najafgarh-Bijwasan Road, which was one of the locations under an umbrella
programme, that included the construction of rail overbridge (RoB) at
Sultanpuri railway crossing, remodelling and covering of Madipur drain,
remodelling and covering of Ramesh Nagar drain and construction of RoB at
Bijwasan railway crossing. In a strange case, a consultant firm hired for
construction of Rs 53 crore Bijwasan road project during 2010 Commonwealth
Games had unlawfully turned out to be the contractor under a joint venture (JV)
for the same project due to which the project is in ruins.
“The project
is gathering dust. In fact the construction site has grass all over it as work
has not been completed in last so many years,” said Parvesh Rana, Congress
councillor from Bijwasan ward. Many other projects like Mahila Haat, Kishanganj
rail over bridge worth Rs 56.5 crores have also come a cropper.
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