Journalism of Courage
Challenging Chief Minister Sheila Dikshits claims about changing the face of Delhi,BJP chief ministerial candidate Harsh Vardhan on Thursday said Connaught Place,which is in her Assembly constituency,resembled a remote village.
While addressing Congressmen on Wednesday,the chief minister said her government had changed the face of Delhi. This is a completely false claim. The renovation work of Connaught Place started before the Commonwealth Games in 2010 but the area is full of potholes even today. The cost of work has escalated several times over. Moreover,people living in 13 slums in the New Delhi Assembly constituency do not have drinking water supply. Families in Balmiki bastis are living in pathetic conditions, Harsh Vardhan said.
Stating that New Delhi was the most important area in the capital,Harsh Vardhan said the Congress had promised better living conditions to people of the constituency during all the three elections it won. But these promises were never fulfilled,he said.
She has not been able to find a way to improve living conditions of people living in slums in the New Delhi area, he said.
From April 2009 to March 2012,Rs 8.85 crore was allotted to the legislator fund of the chief minister. Of this,30.9 per cent has been spent on constructing porta-cabins temporary shelter,13.7 per cent has been spent on constructing boundary walls around the residences of ministers and MPs,14.2 per cent on construction of roads,12.4 per cent on construction of staircases and 5.3 per cent on other works, he said.
Even today,Rs 1.75 crore of the fund remains unspent. Had this amount been spent on the JJ dwellers,they could have been supplied drinking water, Harsh Vardhan said.
He claimed that though Dikshit was the chairperson of several committees in her constituency,the district grievance redressal committee had not been formed yet.
