Delhi: Krishna Nagar
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Civic issues
2017
Mayank Manohar, Ground zero of sanitation mess, March 25, 2017: The Times of India
The four municipal wards in the Krishna Nagar assembly constituency -their number did not change in the delimitation process -consist largely of unauthorised colonies, villages and slum clusters. Ground zero of the five strikes by sanitation workers of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, the deplorable conditions in the Krishna Nagar, Anarkali, Ghondli and Geeta Colony wards are there for everyone to see.
Ghondli is relatively clea Ghondli is relatively cleaner and better organised, but otherwise you find garbage piled up at street corners or strewn across the roads. The roads themselves are miserably potholed, the result of poor maintenance in recent years. Most of the dhalaos are overflowing, and any empty plot soon becomes a trash dump. “The drains are choked, but they are seldom cleaned. And in the rainy season, every road sees waterlogging. We are fed up of complaining. Nothing changes here,“ said BK Bakshi of Krishna Nagar. Like Bakshi, most residents are agitated, recalling that things were better before the area's oversight was handed over to EDMC, one of the three bodies into which the Municipal Corporation of Delhi was divided in 2012.“Since then, whenever we approach councillors or corporation officials, their excuse is they don't have funds,“ said Satish Kaushik, a Geeta Colony resident.
Public hygiene is a burden in the wards. “Since sanitation workers frequently go on strike, we have been forced to hire private garbage collectors,“ reported Anil Sharma in Chander Nagar.“But even on normal days, collection and disposal of waste is irregular.“
To add to this, the densely populated wards have little space for parking or even for proper passage of people and vehicles. The pavements have been taken over by hawkers or are crammed with illegally parked cars. The wards all have at least 10 parks, but these are decrepit, to say the least. The councillors claimed EDMC did not have the money to hire gardeners.
The financial crisis hit the funds that councillors could use for development pro jects in the wards. It was only in 2012-13 and 2013-14 that the councillors got the full Rs 50 lakh as local area development fund. They received none in 2014-15 and 2015-16, and just half the mandated amount this year, that too under pressure from the council lors facing municipal polls.
“If we had received money , the scope for new projects would have been bigger.Delhi government has to cop the blame,“ alleged Kalpana Devi Jain, BJP councillor from Geeta Colony . Her view was countered by Ishrat Ja han, Congress councillor from Ghondli, who said councillors covered up their failures by citing the financial drought. “With the same resources, Ghondli got two maternity hospitals, a dispensary and an air-conditioned community centre,“ said Ja han. “It all depends on how the councillor manages civic responsibilities.“
On April 23, the people will vote for new councillors -but perhaps more cynically than in 2012. And no one would blame them for their pessimism.
