Delhi MLAs, Councillors Didn't Raise Civic Issues Adequately, Claims NGO

New Delhi, Jun 6 (PTI) Notwithstanding a range of civic issues including sewerage problems and water woes affecting the national capital, city lawmakers and councillors did not raise the issues in the assembly and civic bodies adequately, an NGO has claimed.

According to a white paper released by Praja Foundation at a press conference here today, "as many as 1,65,735 complaints were raised by Delhi citizens related to water supply and 73,088 related to sewerage issues in 2017".

However, only "59 water-related issues" were raised by MLAs in the Delhi Assembly last year, claims the paper titled -- Report on civic issues registered by citizens and deliberations by municipal councillors in ward committees and the MLAs in the Assembly sessions.

Councillors raised issues related to water only "29 times" from April-December 2017, it said.

Milind Mhaske, Project Director of Praja Foundation, said, for councillors the period of April-December 2017 was chosen as the MCD elections were held in last April.

Other issues such as pollution, fire in houses and buildings, storm water drainage problems, nuisance from stray dogs and monkeys, were also raised by citizens but these did not get reflected in the quantum of issues raised by MLAs and municipal councillors, including in 2015 and 2016, the NGO alleged.

"22,574 complaints were made on nuisance caused by stray animals, but the issue has been raised only five times by the MLAs and 182 times by councillors (during April-December) in 2017," the report said.

The foundation claimed that all data has been "obtained through the Right to Information (RTI).

"A response to a regular RTI application filed by Praja Foundation to procure number of civic complaints registered with the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) said, "Due to technical problem in CRM (Complaint Redressal Mechanism) of call centre application, no information is available from October 1-December 31, 2017."

"The DJB has lost citizen complaint data of three months," the NGO alleged.

AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj could not be contacted for comments.

According to the data procured by Praja, "Civil Lines Zone under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) saw the highest number (51,553) of civic complaints in 2017". Overall complaints in Delhi city also rose by nine per cent over three years from 3,54,788 in 2015 to 3,88,484 in 2017, the white paper stated.

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