MCD Polls 2017: The fight for Delhi

Currently, the North and South have 104 wards each under their jurisdiction, while the East has 64. The Indian Express spoke to stakeholders to understand the five issues that could affect the election outcome.

Details of expenditure in East Delhi.

Sanitation: Big plans, shoddy implementation

Announcing the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan in his maiden Independence Day address to the nation in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said, “There is a big obstacle in promoting tourism and in our national character, and that is the filthiness all around us. After so many years of Independence… do we still want to live in filth?”

His speech would have found a particular echo in the offices of the three municipal bodies, which spend 16 per cent of their annual budget, or Rs 1,500 crore every year, to keep the capital clean.

On an average, the East corporation used to remove approximately 1,600 metric tonnes (MTs) of garbage daily; the North corporation 2,800 MT and the South corporation 1,200 MT. But following Modi’s speech, the figures went up to 2,400 MT, 3,000 and 2,400 respectively.

Officials told The Indian Express that after the speech, garbage collection increased by 25 per cent on an average per day. District collectors of each zone were given special privileges to hire extra trucks and manpower.

Most of the city’s garbage is dumped at different landfill sites. But they have come under increasing stress — of the 20 developed since 1975, as many as 15 have been closed, while work has been suspended at two. Delhi currently has four landfill sites, three of which operate beyond capacity.

While the permissible limit for dumping garbage at a landfill is 15-20 metres, the sites at Okhla, Ghazipur and Bhalswa are past the 40-metre mark. No new landfills have been added in the last five years, although two waste-to-energy plants and a construction and demolition waste plant have come up to help tackle waste.

In a city where population increases at about 3.5 per cent per annum and the per capita waste generated rises by 1.3 per cent in the same period, devoting additional land to efficiently dispose of garbage has been a constant struggle. Delhi needs more than 1,500 acres for this purpose, civic body officials told The Indian Express. The corporations emphasise that the problem is one of planning and not execution.

However, lack of space to dump garbage isn’t the only issue. The Rs 500-crore fund for implementation of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan took almost two years to be cleared, under which the East corporation received Rs 42 crore, the South Rs 32 crore and the North Rs 46 crore.

Details of expenditure in North Delhi.

In the last five years, expenditure on sanitation has increased from Rs 319 crore for the South body in 2012 to Rs 1,088 crore in 2017-18. But the corporations have seen at least five strikes by over 90,000 sanitation workers due to salary delays since February, 2015.

Despite frequent political slugfests over sanitation, the condition has not improved. While AAP alleged a “salary scam” in the MCDs, the Congress claimed the Kejriwal government has reduced funds for the corporations. “Budget allocation for MCDs has gone down from Rs 3,128 crore during the Congress government to Rs 2,457 crore under AAP,” Pradesh Congress chief Ajay Maken said.

Many corporation officials, sanitation workers and politicians claimed that even though the BJP has maintained its grip on the MCD for 10 years, it rarely had the sort of run-ins with the Congress as it does with AAP.

“Announcements under Swachh Bharat have made no difference. It was a photo-op — they first littered the place and then cleaned it up. Safai karamcharis have become a disenchanted force. The corporations owe them more than Rs 1,100 crore in arrears,” leader of the opposition in the south, Farhad Suri, said.

Roads: Low on priority list

Roughly 88 per cent of the capital’s roads used to be under the three corporations before 2010. That is also when all the city’s roads were re-laid and restored for the Commonwealth Games. However, in 2010, the Delhi government transferred all main roads wider than 60 feet to its Public Works Department, leaving the three MCDs with the smaller streets and roads – a mere 20 per cent – at an annual budget of Rs 300 crore.

“Because monetary allocation was reduced and all the streets were recently repaired, with an average life of four-five years, roads fell off the list of priorities for the MCD. Education, sanitation and health gained prominence,” a senior official said.

An official in the engineering department of the North MCD said the money allocated for roads is simply not enough, and that “they need at least Rs 200 crore more”.

But he also admitted that the North body used up only Rs 60 crore of the Rs 100 crore allotted to it in the last year. This underutilisation of funds — especially due to delays in tendering projects and disbursing of funds to contractors, besides leakages through corruption — has been a major reason for the poor upkeep of roads.

P K Sarkar, an expert on roads and transport, said, “Delays lead to cost escalation of projects because of factors such as inflation. Costs also increase because the condition of a damaged stretch keeps deteriorating till repair and restoration work begins.”

There are 27 agencies directly or indirectly involved with digging work and maintaining underground networks. A senior official in the South corporation said, “Agencies such as the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), power companies and telecom companies dig up roads without permission citing urgent work. Many times, they do not pay the mandatory deposit so we can repair the stretch.”

Details of expenditure in South Delhi.

Take, for example, Mehrauli and Kishangarh in Vasant Kunj, which come under a Congress and BJP councillor respectively. Roads dug up by the DJB for laying pipes in 2013 have still not been fully repaired, residents told the The Indian Express.

Environment: A step in the right direction

Following the ‘dust surveys’ conducted by the three corporations — in the wake of a 2015 National Green Tribunal (NGT) order issuing strict guidelines on how building material should be handled and stored at construction sites — 5,456 violators have been challaned till March, 2017 across the capital.

Of these, the maximum challans (2,347) have been drawn up by the East corporation, followed by the South civic body (2,189) and a meagre 920 by the North body.

Dust from construction sites ranks among the top five major pollutants that clog the capital’s lungs. An IIT-Kanpur study found that construction dust contributes to 3.6 per cent of the total emissions towards particulate matter (PM) 10 and 2.1 per cent of emissions towards PM 2.5.

Inspectors across the three civic bodies challan property builders for violations during routine checks to ensure the site is adhering to building by-laws. Violations are based on the size of the plot, a zonal engineer said.

“For plots up to 100 sq mts, it is a Rs 10,000 fine; up to 200 sq mts is Rs 20,000; between 200 and 500 sq mts is Rs 30,000. For plots exceeding 500 sq mts, it is Rs 50,000,” he said.

The East civic body has collected Rs 1.18 crore in revenue through challans so far; South has collected Rs 1.27 crore; and the North body has collected Rs 86 lakh. “However, not everyone pays up. There is no way for us to penalise non-payment of challans,” the engineer said.

Burning of garbage and leaves in areas under the civic bodies has significantly reduced, an official told The Indian Express. “A few challans were issued, after which the practice reduced considerably,” he said.

Meanwhile, partial opening of the Delhi Western Periphery Expressway has eased the number of trucks using Delhi as a bypass at night. “Since the Manesar-Palwal stretch has been operational, nearly 1,000 trucks have been diverted from Delhi every day. This is bound to double when the whole stretch — which will connect Kundli — is operational,” Ajay Aggarwal, a toll operator, said.

Currently, Aggarwal said, the environment toll tax imposed by the NGT affects 40 per cent of vehicles coming into the city. “The revenue from the NGT tax is up to Rs 1.5 crore a day, which is collected by South corporation and passed on to the Delhi government,” he said.

Health: An imbalance of power

While the MCD trifurcation was aimed at decentralisation of municipal governance in the capital, officials said it only tripled the number of officers, increased costs and resulted in unequal distribution of assets in the three civic bodies.

In terms of healthcare, there are five hospitals under the North and one under the East, but none under the South corporation. The super-speciality hospital constructed in Kalkaji currently offers only OPD services, since equipment has not been purchased. Apart from this, there are 15 polyclinics in the North, one in the East and seven in the South.

North supports the majority of the health infrastructure set up by the erstwhile unified MCD because the hospitals and dispensaries fall under its area. The cash-rich South corporation does not have the “burden” of the constant upkeep of health infrastructure in the way that North and East do.

As the number of posts increased, the civic bodies have been struggling to fill up vacancies. In the North corporation, while there are 129 sanctioned posts of malaria inspectors, the corporation has only 50. Similarly, instead of 15 senior malaria inspectors required to supervise ground staff in its different zones, it has employed one. In the East, all seven posts for senior malaria inspectors are vacant, and there are 19 malaria inspectors in place against the required 65.

Another major responsibility of the corporations is to check the spread of vector-borne diseases such as dengue, malaria and chikungunya. Although the corporations employ domestic breeding checkers on a contract basis to keep the diseases in check, infections and deaths have risen in the last five years.

From 2,093 cases of dengue and four deaths in 2012; it increased to 5,574 cases and six deaths in 2013. In 2015, the number of cases rose to 15,867 and 60 deaths were reported.

As part of its prevention measures, the North corporation distributed mosquito nets laced with insecticides through its councillors last year in July. The MCDs also issued an advisory highlighting the need to pay special attention to schools, colleges and workplaces based on an assessment that 65 per cent of dengue cases during the previous year were reported in the 15-45 age group.

Even with all these measures in place, chikungunya spiked 20 times and crossed the 500-mark in 2016, dengue crossed 700 and the city recorded its first malaria death in six years. This, despite the civic bodies undertaking fogging measures in August and spending Rs 24,000 per day per colony.

Education: Dropouts a worry

Over the last five years, the number of students dropping out of the system has been a cause of worry for the three corporations, which together run over 1,600 schools in the city. Between 2012-13 and 2016-17, over 56,000 students dropped out of schools in the North, over 54,000 in the South and over 26,000 students in the East. This, despite an expenditure of over Rs 2,729 crore by the three corporations.

The South corporation spends the highest — 22 per cent of its budget — on education and has made several improvements to its educational infrastructure by adding permanent buildings, smart classrooms and CCTVs for security.

Officials said in 2016-17, a ‘School Quality Enhancement Programme’ was started in 12 schools and will be expanded to 25 more. As many as 100 science clubs were started in 100 schools and new ‘smart’ classrooms are being added. CCTV cameras were provided to 70 schools. There is a proposal to set up cameras in all schools, as an added incentive to keep girl students from dropping out. As many municipal schools do not have libraries, the North body proposed to set up a “reading room” in its final term.

Despite these initiatives, the corporations have failed to contain the exodus of students from municipal schools.