An NDMC councillor from Rohni zone has filed a PIL in the Delhi High Court seeking tabling and implementation of the recommendations of the Fourth Delhi Finance Commission from the Delhi Government along with redressal of other grievances of the civic body from it.
Chairman of DEMS (Department of?Environment Management Services) Committee of NDMC and councillor of Ward No.49 (Rohini), Vijay Prakash Pandey, has filed the petition, hearing for which would begin tomorrow.
In a statement released by the cash-strapped North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) today, Pandey said, he filed the case because despite many requests, letters, prayers and petitions to the Delhi government, it “refused to pay any heed to the (corporation’s) demands for adequate funds”.
Though the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has been lately mulling the option of taking a legal recourse for release of funds, a senior official of NDMC when contacted said, “the PIL is in his individual capacity as a public representative and does not represent the corporation”.
“We had no other option than seeking remedy from court since it was finding extremely difficult to fulfill its monetary requirements for performing its basic functions and carrying on development works,” Pandey was quoted as saying in the statement.
Pandey in his petition has alleged that the Delhi government is “depriving the municipal corporation of their income and other transfer payments, their share in the proceeds of taxes, duties, tolls and fees levied and collected”.
He claimed that the Delhi government has also “failed” in assigning new taxes, duties, tolls and fees, providing grants-in-aid as envisaged in the constitution.
Besides, the funds required by the corporations to provide services in the unauthorised colonies have also been “withheld”. He said in the petition that due to this attitude of the AAP government, the idea of cooperative federalism as envisaged in the constitution is on the “verge of collapsing”.
