Saurabh Bharadwaj directs third party audit of drain desilting by June 30
Delhi Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Thursday directed Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to conduct a third party audit of the claims of desilting of drains by agencies like PWD and MCD by June 30.
The minister has also asked the chief secretary to submit a list of drains which have been desilted as on June 10 by different departments of the Delhi govt. According to the order, in a review meeting dated June 10 concerning the desilting process, the public works department (PWD) had claimed that out of 2,156 km long drains, about 61 per cent of drains, that is, 1,293 km drains, have been completely desilted. Similarly, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had also claimed that 87.14 per cent of drains taken under phase-1 have been completely desilted.
Bharadwaj had sought an exhaustive list of de-silted drains from PWD Principal Secretary A Anbarasu and MCD Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti to verify the claims of the agencies by June 11.
However, the data has not been provided till date, the order stated.
Highlighting the delay in providing the information, Bharadwaj wrote, “As per the experience of the previous years, most of the desilting work is not completed on ground while reports are presented on papers. Therefore, it is very important to verify the claims of the agencies as to whether the drains have been desilted on ground level or not.
“It is with this intention that PWD and MCD were asked to provide the exhaustive list of all drains, which have been desilted completely as on 10.06.2024, so that the random check can be done on ground to verify the claims of Anbarasu and Gyanesh Bharti and their respective departments,” the order stated.