No clarity on how the Rs 700-cr Civic Centre would be used as the agency is to be split into five parts
No clarity on how the Rs 700-cr Civic Centre would be used as the agency is to be split into five parts
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi's Rs 700-cr Civic Centre is turning into a hot potato after Delhi government has made its intentions known of splitting the agency. The Civic Centre was purposely built to provide a common roof to the scattered departments of the MCD. But in a Cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on April 3, the government decided to accept the recommendations of a high-powered committee chaired by Dr AK Walia, which had in its report last week favoured the splitting of the MCD into five parts.
Purpose dissolved: The Civic Centre was built to provide a common
roof to the scattered departments of the MCD. File pic
purpose dissolved: The Civic Centre was built to provide a common roof to the scattered departments of the MCD. file pic
No answers
Now, apart from the deliberative wing, all the other departments of the civic agency have been shifted to the new building. But the decision on the split has given rise to many questions. "The Civic Centre is still not complete. Now that they are planning to divide the corporation into five parts, what will happen to the building? The purpose of bringing the entire department under the same roof will be defeated now," said a senior official from the corporation on the condition of anonymity.
Many officials also agree that it is a complete waste of public money.u00a0"This question should be basically answered by the Chief Minister who took this decision. Crores of rupees have been spent in constructing and maintaining the Civic Centre. Now, when the councillors and the other heads of departments are officially shifting to the new headquarters, they have totally changed the plan," said Yogendra Chandolia, Chairman, Standing Committee, MCD.
Though, the civic centre will still remain the property of the civic agency, but a lot of it will be wasted.
"It will remain with us, but it was constructed keeping in mind a huge size of the departments of the corporation. It will be allotted to the zone in which it lies. But a large part of it will remain vacant as there would be not enough members to fill the building," added Chandolia.
Take five
The corporation itself is now waiting for the government to decide the fate of the building. "We are also waiting to see what the government decides. These things should be thought about earlier; public money will be wasted now," said PR Sawhney, Mayor, MCD.
The Delhi Government, which has been critical of MCD's functioning under the BJP, had set up a committee to examine possible division of the civic body. Initially, when the committee was formed, it was headed by Congress' AK Walia and had BJP's Jagdish Mukhi and VK Malhotra as members. However, the BJP leaders resigned from the committee just ahead of its first meeting, accusing the government of trying to divide the MCD to gain political mileage.
They were then replaced by Raj Kumar Chauhan and Arvinder Singh Lovely, both from Congress. The committee, which met four times to finalise the recommendations, also favoured an increase in number of wards in the city. It recommended that each Assembly constituency should have six wards.
'Taxing' times
The councillors are however unhappy over the government's decision saying the division will only weaken the civic body. "There are some areas from where we get a very small amount of property tax, but the same is balanced by recovery of tax from other areas. If we divide the Corporation, the income will also be restricted to that particular area. This will affect the uniform development of the city," said Subhash Arya, Leader of the House in MCD.
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