The inundated streets of Delhi became the prime fodder of news channels as the city witnessed its worst flood in 45 years. The one face that became a constant feature of the news channels was that of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s. Any normal citizen would have expected the chief minister to rise up to the occasion to take control of the situation. But as has been the practice with him for years, he did not even let a disaster go without using it as an opportunity to blame the centre. Now as the waters have started receding, it is going to bring with it the insurmountable issue of waste management. Before the honourable chief minister resorts to his usual theatrics, it is necessary for citizens to remind him of the promises he gave to them that have remained unfulfilled to this date.
For the Aam Aadmi Party (AAM), the focus on making Delhi clean began as early as 2013 when they came out with their election manifesto. This year marks a decade since they made their vision public yet it still remains a far-fetched goal. A prominent promise given by the party in its 2017 manifesto on Page 7 was that there will be no garbage in Delhi within a year. Their exact promise is as follows :
We will completely clean all the garbage in Delhi within one year. We will deploy mechanized cleaning across Delhi to ensure that there is no dust. There is a shortage of workers and employees in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). We will employ more people and equip them with the latest state-of-the-art machines for cleaning so that they can perform their task of cleaning Delhi with greater efficiency and we also prevent health hazards for them. Additionally, we will launch a mobile app wherein citizens can send their grievances related to garbage collection and we will resolve their grievance by clearing/picking up garbage from their area within 4 hours.
Such lofty promises have come to define AAP and its leaders in the last few years. One such instance was seen when one of their prominent leaders and now cabinet minister Atishi Singh promised in November 2022 that Delhi will follow the Swedish model of waste disposal in which waste will go directly from homes to treatment plants. In the 2013 manifesto, on page 5, AAP had promised that there will be segregation of bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste at the household level. This same promise was repeated in their 2015 manifesto on page 18. In its first manifesto, AAP had also promised that Mohalla Sabhas would be given complete authority and funds for waste management and cleaning of their localities. This is year 2023. Ten years on, in Delhi, segregation of household waste in still in its infancy. Segregation of waste remains an alien concept for many of the city’s households. It needs to be noted that when AAP had won the municipal elections last year, it had promised to make Delhi absolutely clean in 100 days. However, according to government reports, only 30 per cent of the waste is segregated at the source. If one drives past a garbage collection point at a residential colony even in the upscale part of the city like Greater Kailash, it can be seen that many workers are engaged in manually separating the waste.
Additionally, in their 2020 manifesto, on page 10, the party promised that more safai karamacharis will be appointed as per the 2011 census of Delhi’s population as there is rapid expansion of residential colonies in Delhi. Like all the promises made by the party, the above promises also seem to have vanished into thin air. No professional mapping has been conducted till date. There is severe shortage of workers to cover all the 11 districts. Moreover, in a cruelly ironic way, the party in its 2020 manifesto promised a compensation of Rs 1 crore for safai karamacharis who die while performing duty. It is still not known whether these funds have been disbursed and if yes, from which account. AAP for reasons best known to them has shied away from making these details public. The level of secrecy being maintained makes one wonder if another 20-crore scam like the one in Delhi Jal Board is brewing in MCD too.
In a survey led by Chintan — an environmental research and action group, it was found that 86 per cent safai karamcharis in Delhi have poor lung function. For a party that promises to respect and honour the work done by the safai karamacharis, it is rather strange that they have not considered investing in personal safety gear for these workers. And this is the same party that had no qualms in spending Rs 488.97 crore on advertisements in the financial year 2021-2022 for advertisements. It also paid ₹25.25 crore for top lawyers to find its way out of the excise scam. Only a fraction of this amount was required to ensure the safety of the safai karamacharis.
It is unfortunate that the promises that AAP make keep mounting like the height of city’s landfills. In its 2017 manifesto, it had promised that capacity will be developed to collect and process about 17,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day through public private partnership. According to reports submitted to the Union Jal Shakti Ministry and the Central Pollution Control Board in 2022, Delhi generated 10,990 tonnes per day (TPD) of municipal solid waste (MSW) in April 2021 on an average. Of this, 5,457 TPD (49.65 per cent) was processed at MSW processing facilities and 5,533 (50.35 per cent) ended up in landfill sites at Bhalswa, Ghazipur and Okhla. When it comes to landfills, it needs to be noted that the permissible height of a landfill is only 20 metres but Delhi’s landfills are almost reaching the height of Qutub Minar, the second tallest building in the country. The landfill at Ghazipur had reached a height of 65 metres, after which it was reduced by 12 metres due to the sustained efforts of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
It is worth remembering that when MCD was ruled by BJP, the AAP used to cry foul and say that those elected were not doing enough. The deliberate attempts by AAP using its power as the ruling party at legislative level to scuttle any development often did not find a place in the public discourse. A look at the budget allocation when BJP was ruling the MCD as opposed to the current times when AAP is in power is shocking. As reported by a leading daily on 23 March 2023, in 2017-18, the budget allocation for MCD was Rs. 6,828 crore, but the actual amount released was only Rs. 5,924 crore. Compare this with the budget for 2023-24, when the AAP government has allocated a total of Rs. 8,241 crore to MCD in the budget for 2023-24, which is 25 per cent more than what was allocated previously. The budget allocation also includes a Rs 850 crore loan to the local body to flatten the three garbage mountains in Delhi. Despite having the necessary funds and resources, it is unfortunate that AAP still evades its responsibility and blames the centre for all the ills that the capital city is faced with. Moreover, how the money that is specifically earmarked to clear the garbage hills is being spent is not known yet.
From the above facts, it is clear that chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his party is only good at wordplay. All these years, their pet peeve was that they are unable to undertake any development work as they did not have control of MCD for a very long time. Now when they do have control over all the state’s machinery, it has suddenly become the Centre’s problem. The question that needs to be asked is why were all these promises made in the first place if they had no intention of acting on them? How long will AAP keep taking people and their loyalty for granted? This time, it is the duty of every citizen to pose these tough questions to the honourable chief minister and make him accountable for his actions.
In any profession, there is a reasonable time of leniency that is offered to fulfil a task. And when that profession is politics and the tasks at hand are humongous, one year one month is a reasonably good period to ensure that the promises are fulfilled. But in AAP’s case, even ten years seem to be not enough. As a citizen, one can only hope that the party does not use this article as an opportunity to splurge more funds in giving advertisements to say that the relevant and pressing questions raised here are nothing but allegations. It has always been AAP’s practise to brush serious issues under the carpet and make the citizens suffer due to the policy mismanagement and inc0mpetence.
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