New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party on Friday alleged that Municipal Corporation of Delhi‘s commissioner Ashwani Kumar arbitrarily implemented the user charge on collection of garbage.
Addressing a press conference, AAP‘s state president Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that Kumar was working at the behest of BJP, having hiked trade and health licence fees and unilaterally imposed the user charge in violation of the House protocol.
Bharadwaj further said that in the MCD budget, a proposal was passed to exempt houses measuring up to 100 square yards from the property tax. “But the commissioner failed to implement it,” he alleged. “The budget also included provisions to regularise 12,000 MCD employees, but Kumar is sitting on that too. Further, if someone doesn’t pay the user charge, their property tax is not being accepted,” the AAP functionary stated further.
The commissioner, however, said these were “motivated” allegations.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said that Bharadwaj’s comment was “laughable”. “If the municipal commissioner implemented the user charge without the mayor’s approval, then why hasn’t the mayor issued a written directive to withdraw it to date? And why does he not convene a special House session to pass a resolution to cancel it instead?” Kapoor asked.
The BJP functionary further alleged that AAP first attempted to run Delhi govt through anarchic and unconstitutional means and was now trying to replicate the same in MCD. “First, they stalled development work in Delhi, and in the past two years, they paralysed the corporation. The user charge was implemented by the municipal commissioner in full knowledge of the mayor,” he said.
The leader of the opposition in MCD and former mayor Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh claimed that due to AAP’s “petty political tactics”, formation of the standing committee was delayed. “AAP was aware that it might not win the standing committee chairmanship election and therefore created hurdles at every step of the formation process. Even the appointment of a concessionaire for the disposal of legacy waste at landfill sites was delayed and Supreme Court had to intervene in the matter,” he said.
Meanwhile, mayor Mahesh Kumar Khichi sent a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday, requesting the appointment of a “more attentive MCD commissioner”. “For the effective execution of responsibilities, it is imperative to have mutual coordination and cooperation between the executive officers of the corporation and the heads of its deliberative wings,” stated the mayor.