By Sidharth Mishra
Ever since his senior colleague Manish Sisodia was sent to the jail, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has got active in the city. For once he is giving time to his duties as the head of the city government rather than spending all his time on his functioning as the leader of Aam Aadmi Partyu (AAP).
This has brought him into a direct bout with the Lieutenant Governor, VK Saxena vis-à-vis discharge of their respective responsibilities for the national Capital. In the earlier arrangement, Sisodia routinely berated the Lieutenant Governor for his initiatives saying this meant trespass into the dominion of the elected government.
There has been a change in this contest for credit with both the Raj Niwas and the CM’s office rather than targeting what the other is doing, are releasing information about what they are delivering. Thus we have Kejriwal probably for the first time in public memory visiting the garbage mounds on the northern and eastern fringe of the city at Bhalsawa and Gazipur respectively.
He has claimed that that the city would be free of mounds by March 2024. After the 2019 order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) work began to remove waste from Bhalswa landfill site. The mound at that time was estimated to contain around 80 lakh metric tons of waste.
From 2019 until now, around 30 lakh metric tons of waste have been removed. However, the mound still holds around 50 lakh metric tons of garbage, whether this could be completed in 12 months is something to be watched. Nevertheless, such initiatives should be welcomed.
On the other hand, the Lieutenant Governor has taken upon himself to revive the gardens in the city. Though making comparison to Mughal and British times are not very fashionable these days, historical evidences and continuing traditions indicate that these two rulers paid a lot of attention to building Baghs (parks) and gardens.
This tradition was largely continued in the post-independence years too, with flower shows being part of Delhi’s spring almanac. Sheila Dikshit during his three terms as chief minister gave further boost to these traditions by making garden festivals part of Delhi government’s calendar.
Now, L-G V K Saxena has directed officials to ensure that Delhi is adorned with flowering plants throughout the year and asked the NDMC to plant five lakh tulips, sourced from Jammu and Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh, in the next season. This year alone, about 1.5 lakh tulips were planted across the New Delhi area. The council had imported 1,40,000 tulip bulbs this year from the Netherlands and planted them at Shanti Path lawns for the festival which took place from February 14 to February 26.
The Lieutenant Governor has also taken to rejuvenating the floodplains of much maligned and polluted Yamuna river. According to official statement, the entire 11 km stretch on the eastern bank, upstream from Shastri park to Garhi Mandu will undergo a thorough make over. In addition to this the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has been directed to carry out an intensive plantation drive.
Such initiatives could only be welcomed by the residents of the capital, who have been forced to live in the midst of civic infrastructure falling apart, rise in pollution and cacophonous environment caused by political diatribe in the past decade. In the name of welfare, subsidies have been ferreted out to purchase votes.
These subsidies greatly compromised on the development budget of the national Capital affecting quality of life in the national Capital. Hopefully this change in the functioning of the government is here to stay and flowers don’t wilt before the next spring.
(First published in The Morning Standard)
