Latching on to accusations by a former senior civic official of financial irregularities in some NDMC projects, the AAP today attacked the BJP-led MCD and alleged that there was a “land scam” in the civic body, a charge rejected by the NDMC.
Meanwhile, taking cognizance of the allegations levelled in a complaint by the former civic official, Renu Jagdev, North Delhi Mayor Adesh Gupta today constituted a three-member committee, which was “asked to examine all the points raised by Jagdev and submit its report within one month positively”, a statement issued by the NDMC said.
The members of the committee are S K Bhandari, IAS, Additional Commissioner (Engineering), U B Tripathi, Additional Commissioner (DEMS) and Deepak Purohit, IPS, Chief Vigilance Officer, the statement added.
Jagdev, a former additional commissioner in the civic body, had gave the complaint to Gupta on May 18, alleging “financial irregularities” in projects such as the one related to the Rani Jhansi Grid Separator (flyover).
AAP spokesperson Dilip Pandey told a press conference here, “The AAP will not allow this loot of public money and we will take this scam to the people of Delhi. This issue will be forcefully raised in the forthcoming Assembly session as well.”
He added that the party would “continue to expose the corruption of the BJP”.
Rejecting the allegations levelled by the AAP, the NDMC, in the statement, claimed that the charges were based on “hearsay, misinformation and falsehood to mislead the people”.
Referring to Jagdev’s allegations, Pandey said, “The most shocking of them all is the transfer of 95 acres of land belonging to the MCD to the DMRC, without the approval of the municipal body. The land, which is valued at over Rs 15,000 crore by conservative estimates, is currently being developed by a private builder.”
The AAP leader also levelled a few other allegations at the press conference and challenged the BJP to answer five questions posed in this connection.
The NDMC, in its statement, offered a point-by-point rebuttal, claiming that there was no irregularity in the transfer of any land.
On a question on the ownership of the 95-acre land and who allowed it to be handed over to a private builder, the NDMC claimed that the DMRC was allotted the land at Khyber Pass by the Ministry of Urban Development (Land & Development Office), Government of India, on Novemeber 15, 1999 for the construction of the Khyber Pass depot.
A piece of the land was auctioned by the DMRC for residential development, pursuant to the Ministry of Urban Development’s gazette notification of 2003, the NDMC claimed.
Senior AAP leader Atishi Marlena said, “The same civic bodies (MCD), which have no funds to pay salaries to teachers or safai karamcharis, allow 95 acres of their land to be transferred for the benefit of a private builder, without any questions being asked? Who is the beneficiary of this transfer?”
The then unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated into north (NDMC), south (SDMC) and east (EDMC) corporations in 2012.
The MCD and the three civic bodies are being ruled by the BJP for the last over 10 years.
The NDMC statement said Jagdev was a 1989-batch IRS officer. She had served in both the unified MCD and the NDMC.
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