The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced its candidates for Ghaziabad municipal body elections on Sunday and also released its manifesto promising free water, slashing of house tax, door-to-door pick-up of garbage and a city bus service among others.
Lambasting the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, district convener Sachin Sharma said that these parties are involved in rampant corruption to siphon off huge public money from government agencies and therefore the AAP has decided to contest.
Twenty candidates have been finalised for Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation and 17 for Loni, Modi Nagar and Khoda municipal bodies, he said.
Citing the party manifesto, Sharma said that if AAP wins power, it will provide free clean water to residents and will install free water ATMs at main public places.
House tax will to cut to half, pendency of house tax would be waived off, electricity would be generated from garbage, the condition of municipal schools would be improved, 'mohalla' clinics would be established in each ward and 'mohalla sabhas' would be set up ward-wise, he said.
Stressing that local development work would be undertaken only after the local mohalla sabhas' recommendations, Sharma said the payments to contractors would only be made after they clear it.
He promised that garbage would be picked up from door to door for free and the drains would be covered to avoid the spread of mosquitoes, while adding that a local city bus service would be started to carry passengers within the city routes connecting trans-Hindon and trans-Railway Line areas.
Revealing "shocking" expenditures pertaining to health, Sharma said that he had come to know, through an RTI application, that the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation is incurring an expenditure of Rs 70 crore and this was spent on fogging and spraying insecticides. He said that another Rs 1.5 crore was shown spent on maintenance of hand pumps.
He said if AAP comes to power, the budget of income and expenditure would be made transparent.
--IANS
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