War of words between AAP, BJP over waterlogging in Delhi Assembly

New Delhi: On the first day of the Delhi Assembly session on Monday, leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) traded barbs over the issue of waterlogging in Delhi, with the ruling party saying the problem was a result of the MCD not cleaning drains and the latter holding the AAP government-led Public Works Department responsible. Municipal Corporation of Delhi is ruled by the BJP, while the PWD is a Delhi government agency. During the discussion, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said people are facing problems due to waterlogging in the city and the issue should not be politicised. He noted that nearly 2,000 km of the city drains come under the jurisdiction of the PWD and the remaining are maintained by the MCD and other agencies. “There is confusion among people over the jurisdiction of agencies. We cannot justify the PWD and the MCD in this House. It’s a crime if any agency claims to have desilted a drain without actually having done it. If I come to know that this happened in case of any PWD drain, action will be taken against the guilty,” Sisodia said. He also said that a “very poor system” has come up in the MCD due to the unification of the three municipal corporations. “Earlier, there used to be a director of local bodies of the Delhi government but now, after making some new rules, they (unified MCD) have abolished that arrangement. Later, they (MCD) said that the Assembly cannot ask questions (on issues pertaining to the MCD),” he added. Adding to that, Aam Aadmi Party MLAs including Rituraj Govind, Kuldeep Kumar, Sanjeev Jha and Rakhi Birla also spoke on the issue of waterlogging and blamed the MCD for it. They alleged that the MCD has not been properly desilting the drains under its jurisdiction, which leads to waterlogging. On the other hand, BJP MLA Jitendra Mahajan countered the AAP, and said the PWD is to be blamed for waterlogging in Delhi as it is responsible for maintaining all the big nullahs but does not clean them. “The MCD has managed to clean smaller drains despite adverse financial conditions. There is corruption in desilting of drains (by the PWD). A joint committee should be set up to ensure proper desilting of drains and there should be no politics over it,” he said. BJP legislator Abhay Verma said, “Why are only PWD roads waterlogged? The rainwater from smaller drains flows into bigger drains managed by the PWD that are clogged. As a result, the water spills over onto roads and underpasses.” According to government data, there are about 2,846 drains in Delhi and their total length is about 3,692 km. The PWD manages around 1,100 drains with a length of 2,050 km along 1,260 km of roads across 17 divisions in the city. Delhi received its first monsoon showers on Thursday after which many areas including the newly-inaugurated Pragati Maidan tunnel, ITO, Pul Prahladpur underpass, Barapullah corridor, Delhi-Meerut Expressway and Sarai Kale Khan were waterlogged, resulting in hours-long traffic jams. Due to the waterlogging, the traffic police had to shut the Pul Prahladpur underpass for vehicular movement on the Mehrauli-Badarpur road. (With inputs from PTI) Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.