East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) did not involve resident bodies in its annual budget preparation, presented by the standing committee on January 30.
Two weeks ago, EDMC’s standing committee had said that area municipal ward councillors would reach out to RWAs, CGHS federations, trade unions and other public unions in East Delhi to ensure their views and needs were kept in mind when presenting this year's budget.
City Spidey had confirmed the news from a few RWAs, CGHS federations, councillors from Mayur Vihar Phase I, Vasundhara Enclave and IP Extension, and also EDMC standing chairman Jitender Chaudhari.
The RWAs had lauded EDMC's decision to include them and were eagerly waiting for a confirmation on the date of the meeting with the MCD.
JP Sharma, general secretary of Vasundhara Enclave CGHS, said, “The members of the federation were prepared for the meeting. They had even collated problems from as many as 45 societies in the area."
BS Vohra, president of the East Delhi RWA federation, said, "I had received this information from our councillor and even had a telephonic conversation with Jitender Chaudhari about it. We were waiting for the date of the meeting to be confirmed but there was nothing from EDMC."
It was the Delhi government's idea to involve RWAs in budget preparation. The government had organised mohalla sabhas in several parts of the city and had involved RWAs while presenting the annual budget for 2016-17.
During a press conference after the budget, City Spidey asked the EDMC chairman why the RWAs were not involved in budget presentation this time. "We had identified the RWAs to be involved, but we had just two weeks to plan the entire thing and that was not enough," said Chaudhuri. "We were also facing a lack of manpower, which made it difficult for us to involve them."
The RWAs said EDMC’s 46-point budget was nothing but an election manifesto. “This budget is unrealistic," said Umed Singh, member of the federation of Mayur Vihar I CGHS. "What were they thinking? All residential properties up to 41.81 sq m have been exempt from property tax. This clearly shows what their motive is. It’s a terrible decision, when the corporation is already facing a financial crunch. On the one hand you exempt house-tax payers without a roadmap to come out of your financial crisis, and on the other hand you talk about solar-powered societies in East Delhi. How is that even possible?”
