While the residents of the capital are being burdened with user surcharge on the pretext of garbage collection which has been imposed by Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the political parties are engaged in blaming each other on the matter.
Earlier this issue witnessed the unity of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) where both the parties were protesting against the charges with AAP criticising linking property tax with it and rapped the MCD commissioner for allegedly bypassing the house, BJP leaders staged a protest at the MCD commissioner’s residence.
Delhi BJP has claimed that AAP has deliberately imposed a user surcharge on the people of Delhi under the pretext of garbage collection.
“A similar surcharge was proposed earlier in 2021 by the then Commissioner of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation, but the BJP Mayor at that time had halted its implementation. In contrast, the current Aam Aadmi Party Mayor, Mahesh Kumar, is merely issuing statements without taking action,” BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said.
He said it is clear that currently the Municipal Corporation of Delhi does not have any arrangement to collect garbage from homes and shops in 70 per cent of Delhi’s areas. Hence, collecting a user surcharge along with the property tax is entirely illegal.
Meanwhile, Congress slammed BJP and blamed that the BJP government was imposing heavy financial burden on the people on one pretext or another with the latest being the MCD Commissioner’s decision to implement the Solid Waste Management Rules of 2018, which mandates a monthly user fee for garbage collection, ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 200 per month for residential properties, based on their size, which will be included in the house tax of the residents without getting it passed in the MCD House, which was illegal and anti-people.
He demanded that the Commissioner’s decision to impose user charge for garbage collection should be rolled back as the Corporation had failed in its own duty to keep the city garbage free, and in clearing the three garbage mountains, which was one of the Assembly election promises of both BJP and Aam Aadmi Party.
“The BJP and Aam Aadmi Party were colluding in implementing the use tax for garbage collection with the Mayor accusing the Municipal Commissioner of imposing the tax, though the Mayor is the political head of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in the MCD,” Yadav added.
