Powerful posts in MCD only for a few

Eager to grab power, the influential Congress Councillors in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi seem to have given the go-by to a unanimous resolution passed by the House in April 2002 according to which all the elected representative were to be given equal opportunity in local body administration.

Prominent among the violators of this House resolution are the Leader of the House, Satbir Singh, his deputy Jagdish Pradhan, and the Standing Committee Deputy Chairman, Ashok Jain. The development during this year’s annual elections in the MCD has resulted in widespread resentment among the elected representatives who complain that working against the spirit of the said resolution, memberships of important MCD committees were being grabbed by a small section of the Congress Councillors.

Referring to the resolution, the office of the Municipal Secretary said that as part of an objective to give equal opportunities in civic administration, a Councillor would not be a member of more than two Statutory or Special Committees. “This was done to accommodate all the Councillors in these Committees. However, this is being openly violated. Instead of exposing all of us to civic governance, only a few are enjoying the fruits of power,” said a Congress Councillor.

Leading the list of violators is Mr. Singh, who besides being a member of the powerful Standing Committee is also a member of the Statutory Education Committee and Special Municipal Accounts Committee. Mr. Singh has been attending the meetings of all these Committees, records revealed.

The Chairman of the Special Medical Relief and Public Health Committee, Mr. Pradhan is a member of the Standing Committee, Sanitation Committee, House Tax Committee and Sports Committee. The influential Mr. Jain, who has been the Standing Committee Deputy Chairman since April 2002, is member of three more Committees: House Tax, Slums and Municipal Accounts.

Elected Chairman of the Appointments Committee, the Congress Councillor, who was sidelined by the party for long, has this time round managed to become member of the Standing Committee, Law Committee and Health Committee. The party Councillor from Badarpur is member of four Committees (Standing, Rural, Health and Garden), while Satbir Singh is member of three (Standing, Health and Municipal Accounts).

The former president of Delhi University Students Union, Nitu Verma, is member of the Standing Committee, Assurance Committee and Law Committee. Other Standing Committee members, who are members of more than one Committee, are: Kamaljeet (Rural and Assurance), Rajendri Sehrawat (Rural and Hindi), Ramesh Pandit (Works and Code of Conduct), and Sugreev Singh (Sanitation and Municipal Accounts).