CM pitches for smaller municipal units

The committee will look into all aspects of the agency’s functioning and recommend a set of feasible guidelines to improve the delivery of services,fix financial mismanagement and other obstacles,arising due to the huge size of the area managed,said Dikshit.

“Several people contact the MCD for various services every day. Their level of satisfaction needs to be improved,” she said after the meeting.

Urban Development minister A K Walia will head the committee,which has Congress leaders Raj Kumar Chauhan and Arvinder Singh Lovely,and V K Malhotra and Jagdish Mukhi from the Opposition as members.

Urban Development secretary will be the committee’s secretary.

“Bifurcation of the MCD into a number of workable units would prove to be result-oriented as far as the present work culture of the MCD is concerned,which needs to be reformed suitably,” said Dikshit.

At least five committees have been constituted in the past to prepare a roadmap for reorganising the agency,but recommendations of none were executed. The committees include the Balakrishnan Committee,the Virendra Prakash Committee,the Ashok Pradhan Committee,the Omesh Saigal Committee and the second Administrative Reforms Commission.

It was not clear on Monday what the fate of the new committee will be,as the two Opposition leaders in the group began on a note of dissent.

V K Malhotra,who said he has already headed one such committee in the past,told Newsline the government did not take him into confidence before involving him in the process. “I got a call from the Chief Minister in the evening,informing me of the decision. I will discuss the issue of my participation with my party colleagues before attending any meeting,” he said.

Malhotra’s party,the BJP,heads the MCD. He also questioned why the Congress should bring up the issue of reorganisation when it is not managing the agency.

Mukhi said two other committees — V K Malhotra and Deep Chand Bandhu committees — have also dealt with the matter. He said he could not understand the purpose of constituting another committee when so much time and money has already been spent before.

“I told the CM (this) when she called me to tell me that I was a member of the new committee. I wasn’t kept in the loop,I won’t participate till I am clear what the committee’s purpose is,” Mukhi said.