Date:03/12/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/12/03/stories/2006120313300400.htm

New Delhi

Bidhuri demands Corporation for East Delhi

Staff Reporter

Nationalist Congress Party president asks Government to fulfil promise

NEW DELHI: Delhi Nationalist Congress Party president Ramvir Singh Bidhuri has demanded that the Congress Government in Delhi fulfil its promise of giving a separate Municipal Corporation for East Delhi without any further delay.

Mr. Bidhuri also severely criticised the decision to impose high conversion charges on the people of Delhi for converting their properties to mixed land use and commercial use categories in various parts of the city. Mr. Bidhuri pointed out that the Congress had promised before the Lok Sabha, Delhi Assembly and Municipal Corporation of Delhi polls that it would create a separate civic body for the trans-Yamuna area where one-third of Delhi's population lives.

"Years have passed but the promise remains unfulfilled with no indication of any such action to create a separate Corporation. It is a betrayal of the people of East Delhi,'' said the NCP legislator. "The people of trans-Yamuna would not forgive" the Congress and give it a befitting reply in the forthcoming MCD polls in the Capital.''

Demanding that the Congress-led Corporation be dissolved immediately and then split into three parts in order to provide corruption-free and efficient civic services, Mr. Bidhuri said the present set-up had become corrupt and unmanageable and it was high time corrective action was taken to set things right.

Advocating the case for splitting the Corporation, Mr. Bidhuri said the Virendra Prakash Committee as well as the Deep Chand Bandhu Committee of the Delhi Assembly had favoured splitting the Corporation into smaller bodies.

On the other hand, Mr. Bidhuri accused the MCD of meting out a step-motherly treatment to the rural areas of Delhi by not undertaking a survey to identify roads for mixed land and commercial use. He demanded that the present survey to identify 1,000 additional roads for notification under the mixed land and commercial use categories also include rural roads.

"The Corporation should send teams to rural areas so that the required number of roads are identified and relief is given to the people who are at present faced with an uncertain situation.''

At the same time, Mr. Bidhuri announced that he along with senior NCP leader Tariq Anwar, Jan Morcha leader Raj Babbar, Communist Party of India general secretary A. B. Bardhan and Shoaib Iqbal of the Janata Dal (S) would soon meet Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy to submit a memorandum on issues concerning rural villages.