The BJP-led SDMC House Thursday witnessed heated exchanges between councillors from the ruling party and the AAP over desilting of drains in South Delhi ahead of the monsoon, even as the leader of opposition alleged a "corruption" in the silt removal work and sought a "vigilance probe" into it.
The issue occupied the majority of time during the proceedings of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation House at the Civic Centre here, with BJP councillor Poonam Bhati and Leader of House Kamaljeet Sehrawat claiming that the desilting work is getting hampered because of lack of funds, and sought release of municipal funds from the Delhi government for this financial year.
AAP councillor and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the House Praveen Kumar, however, countered the ruling party and claimed, "As per data shared by the SDMC officials, around 98 per cent of silt removal work has already been carried out."
"So, why are the BJP councillors saying, work is not getting executed," he asked.
Mayor Sunita Kangra, after listening to both the sides, said she was "not satisfied" with the response of the department officials and that she would conduct surprise inspections to asses the "ground situation" on desilting.
The ruling party has rejected the allegation and instead blamed the AAP government of "not releasing municipal funds due to it".
Kumar, later, shared some official documents with reporters, according to which there are a total of 247 nullahs spanning 163 km under the jurisdiction of the SDMC.
"As per this data obtained from the SDMC itself, total quantity of silt removed between August 1, 2018 and June 11 this year stands at 30,4446.67 MT which translates to removal of about 98.6 per cent of silt, so what are they complaining about," he told reporters.
He also shared another data with reporters and alleged as per that data, a "huge quantity" of silt was removed in mere six days comparable to the quantumcan be desilted over several months.
He also distributed copies of data to the press.
"For the Central Zone of the SDMC, the total quantity of silt removed between August 1, 2108 and May 31 was 9457.81 MT, and the same removed between May 31-June 6, 2019 stood at 4019.05 MT," Kumar claimed.
"So, in just 5-6 days so much silt was removed as that would have taken months to do. This points to corruption in the desilting work," he alleged, saying that he "demanded a vigilance probe into it".
The leader of opposition said he would also send a letter to the Lt Governor and the municipal commissioner in this case.
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