By Sidharth Mishra

The clouds had started to recede and pouring from the sky also started to reduce on the national Capital. However, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his ministerial colleague Saurabh Bhardwaj chose to blame the floods in Yamuna river for the three days of water-logging in the national Capital, before Yamuna over flew the banks.

Ironically Yamuna started to rise only when the water logging in the city had started to clear. Delhi government is misleading the people when it blames floods in the Yamuna for water logging in the city, which happened because the silt from the choked drains were not cleared.

Delhi faced temporary deluge because the state government ministers handled the matter in the most immature and amateurish manner. They chose the misery to be another photo opportunity otherwise how did it help the city by the Minister standing in knee-deep water or taking a boat ride.

A Minister’s responsibility is to put a system in place in advance and keep it functional to avoid such miseries. Turing such unfortunate situations into photo opportunities can best be called an scavenging act.

The Public Works Department, the MCDs, New Delhi municipal council (NDMC), Delhi Jal Board, and the revenue and flood and irrigation departments are responsible for cleaning and maintaining roads and drains in the city. However, the majority of the responsibility rests with the MCD and the Delhi Jal Board.

Of these, only NDMC, is today not under the supervision of the AAP. Anyway NDMC covers a very small area and all its drains fall into the drainage system managed by the MCD or the Delhi Jal Board.

Another minister in a video message said that it seldom rained in Delhi during the month of July. Come on Sir, the scheduled time of arrival of monsoon in Delhi is after June 20. July and August, coinciding with the Indian calendar month of Shravan, have always been the months which receive maximum rains.

The city was flooded not because of the heavy downpour but because the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), which is now under the control of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), failed miserably to clear silt from the clogged drains. This happened because there isn’t any sanitation committee in place for the cleaning of the drains.

City Mayor Shelly Oberoi, who was making loud claims before the rains had arrived of having got the drains cleaned, has ensured that none of the committees of the corporation are functional and the civic services lying in a limbo. Municipal Corporation works through various committees with the standing committee the apex body.

The chairman of the standing committee functions as the executive head of political wing of the corporation, whereas the Commissioner is the head of the administrative arm. Both the offices work hand-in-hand to make the corporation function smoothly. However, the Mayor has repeatedly scuttled the election of these bodies as the Bharatiya Janata Party has the numbers to dominate these committees.

The bane of governance in Delhi in the past decade has been that the government of the day have chosen acts of petty politics over the cause of administration. The issue of the election of the Standing Committee is now pending before the Supreme Court, thus the constitution of all the related committees like on sanitation and education among others stand delayed.

In the absence of these committees, the officials are working and spending on what’s called ‘anticipatory approvals’ and would regularize all actions as and when the committees are formed. This is an outstanding example of how petty politics overruns governance which exemplifies in the shape of clogged drains and flooded roads of the national Capital.

These acts also amount to financial malpractise as in the absence of political accountability splurging and embezzlement are common place. However, who cares for frittering away of the government funds? At least not the Delhi government, about whom even the Supreme Court has pointed out that they only have money to spend on advertisements and not on the infrastructure projects.

Now coming to the floods in the Yamuna and the river inching towards danger mark. Instead of bemoaning about it, the concerened Minister should have know when Yamuna is in floods it over flows banks to the river plain and recharges the groundwater stock, which in the national Capital is abysmally low.

A Yamuna with good discharge duing the rainy season also helps clean the river of the filth which flow into it as systems for prevention of water pollution are in the shambles. The Lieutenant Governor has taken some initiative on the directions of the National Green Tribunal about it trying to get the Najafgarh drain cleaned but this again has been resented by the city government. All thanks to petty politics.

Moreover blaming the neighbouring state of Haryana for flooding Delhi by releasing water is laughable. Can anybody hold discharge by a river in flood? If one went by the Minister’s logic, Uttar Pradesh should complain that why was Delhi releasing water beyong Okhla barrage.

(First Published in The Morning Standard)