Friday, March 11, 2011

MCD may be split into 5

NEW DELHI: The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) may be split into five parts. The first political committee constituted by chief minister Sheila Dikshit last month to look into restructuring of the corporation before the 2012 municipal elections agreed in principle to study the option of splitting MCD into five parts at its first meeting on Friday.

Instead of the much-talked about trifurcation formula, the committee, which has revenue minister A K Walia as its chairman, has narrowed down its scope of study to the suggestions of the Vijay Kumar Malhotra Committee and Deep Chand Bandhu Committee reports. Both recommend the division of MCD into five corporations. The first political committee to restructure the MCD was constituted by the CM on February 7. It was supposed to have three ministers and two BJP MLAs. Besides Walia, urban development minister Raj Kumar Chauhan and transport minister Arvinder Singh Lovely are on board. The leader of the opposition from BJP, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, and senior BJP MLA Jagdish Mukhi were called upon to join the committee.

However, the BJP opted out, labelling the timing of the constitution of the committee politically motivated, considering that the civic polls are slated for early next year. The BJP said they did not agree with the terms of reference, which merely focus on MCD and leave out DDA and the police. Friday's meeting happened without the BJP. On their absence, the ruling party members hit back saying that if the BJP did not agree with the terms of reference of the committee they could have at least joined the process and also put forth their views on DDA and police. "No one would have stopped them from discussing that," said Lovely.

After the meeting, revenue minister Walia said that they had been apprised of the findings of reports of all previous committees by chief secretary Rakesh Mehta. "A consensus was reached in principle that dividing the MCD was essential to improve efficiency," he added. There are six reports on restructuring of MCD so far and all recommend division of the corporation into smaller parts.

toi

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