City: Delhi / NCR

This is the second and final of the two-part analysis of the new Act passed by Parliament, merging Delhi’s three municipal corporations into one all-powerful Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) under the control of the union government. The first part can be read here. The trifurcation of the Delhi local body in 2012 could no doubt have been better thought out. The three MCDs together had 94.23% of the NCT area — 1399.26 sq km of the total area of 1484.97 sq km. As per the 2011 Census, the three MCDs had 97.81% of Delhi's population under all the local bodies…

This first of a two-part series looks at the new Parliament Act merging Delhi’s three corporations into one all-powerful Delhi Municipal Corporation. For Delhi’s citizens, the hope is that creation of one omnibus municipal corporation for Delhi will improve the quality of services provided. For all those employed by the municipal corporations in different segments and capacities, from  teachers and sanitation workers to doctors, nurses and health workers, to name a few, the hope is that they may at last get their salaries, arrears and pensions which the present trifurcated MCDs have been unable to pay. Not surprisingly, all sections…

Rupees 10 crore may seem a small number. But the cause that prompted the Delhi government to allocate this sum is at once extraordinarily human, and extremely rare. Building a boarding school for children whose home generally are the pavements, road dividers, under flyovers and outside stations and temples. It is a miniscule part of the Rs 75,800 crore total Delhi budget, presented by Delhi Finance Minister Manish Sisodia. Efforts to bring these street kids into the mainstream education stream have failed so far. A boarding school for them will be a small step in that direction, Sisodia hopes, and that…

With the presentation of the Delhi budget due any day now, stakeholding citizens crystal gaze at every word, comma and fullstop in the finance minister's statements. But Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio besides education, left little scope for guesses on what the Kejriwal government's priorities will be for the upcoming 2022-23 state budget. For one, the Delhi government came out with full page newspaper advertisement inviting suggestions from citizens to send their ideas on what the focus and specifics of the budget should be. Normally, pre-budget public consultations around policy and allocations generally…

Ever since its launch in 2018, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been trying to include his “revolutionary step” of doorstep delivery of rations in Delhi to the list of 100 services presently available under this scheme. Presently, people pick up their rations from Fair Price Shops (FPS) under the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS).  The state government was all set to roll out the scheme initially on March 25th, and again in mid-June. Both times, Lt Governor Anil Baijal ensured it did not happen. Baijal represents the BJP-led Central government that has constantly been at loggerheads with the AAP government. The…

As Delhi’s air quality continues to oscillate between poor and severe this winter, the Delhi government imposed a ban on construction from November 15th. The Supreme Court too stepped in to reinforce the ban. In a move to alleviate the problems faced by about six lakh suddenly unemployed construction workers registered with the Delhi Government, the government launched the ‘Shramik Mitra‘ scheme for them. Under the scheme, 800 ‘Shramik Mitras’ will reach out to construction workers, and spread awareness on various government schemes available to them. These Shramik Mitras will work as District, Ward and Vidhan Sabha level coordinators and go…

Families of six workers who worked in a shoe factory in Delhi’s Udyog Vihar, had to wait two days in front of the factory for the charred remains of victims of an industrial fire in the factory on June 23rd this year to be found. The fire broke out in a three-story building trapping 12 workers inside. It took 140 firefighters over six hours to control the fire, rescuing six while the other six died inside the building. On November 13, another fire broke out in a jacket manufacturing factory in Seelampur, Delhi. Five workers were rescued from inside the…

To explore any workable solution to the problem of air quality in Delhi, one needs to first understand Delhiites themselves. Delhiites have two unique behaviour patterns. One, all laws, rules and regulations apply only to others, not to themselves. A Delhiite caught breaking a rule would call the relative of a relative of a relative to bail him out rather than obey the rule. The second is whatever goes wrong, like the very poor air quality that the capital is facing right now, is always someone else’s fault. Never their own. No way will they not take out their personal…

Six months after Minister for Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari introduced the much awaited vehicle scrappage scheme in the Lok Sabha, the Delhi government on September 27th announced its new policy to scrap all 15-year-old diesel vehicles in Delhi and the NCR. “Diesel vehicles older than 15 years will be impounded and sent to the scrapping yard if they are found plying on city roads or parked in public places,” said Delhi Transport Commissioner Ashish Kundra. The scrappage policy announced by Gadkari is a government-funded programme to get old vehicles off the roads. This is expected to reduce pollution,…

It is that time of the year in when winter smog sets in and air pollution spikes in Delhi. Delayed withdrawal of rains and consequent deferment of stubble burning this year had made October one of the cleanest in the last few years. But the onset of winter conditions – cool and calm wind, temperature inversion, rapidly increasing farm fires and overall trapping of regional pollution – has created conditions that may trigger the season’s first smog episode soon.   The SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research) programme of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology had already predicted…