Sisodia promises garbage-free city, timely salary to 'Safai Karamcharis'
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has promised salaries on time for the 'Safai Karamcharis', better parks, and an end to the sanitation woes of residents ahead of the MCD elections. In an exclusive interview with Aaisha Sabir of Millennium Post, the Minister talks about AAP's plan for the four garbage mountains in the Capital and the roadmap ahead.
Excerpts:
What are you expecting in the upcoming MCD elections?
People are fed up with the garbage problem and the mountain of garbage that BJP has given to the city. It is striking even more as Delhi is a 21st century city and at least BJP should have cleared the garbage here. People come out of their homes and are immediately greeted by dirty and littered streets which will not be the case once AAP is elected in MCD. People are unhappy with BJP and they have witnessed the work that has been done by the AAP government in seven years so they want to hand over the reins of MCD to AAP as well.
If AAP wins the election what will be your priority in MCD?
Salaries of 'Safai Karamcharis' will be our top priority as they have been denied that for a long time. Our target will be to ensure their salaries from January itself. Garbage cleaning has to be started immediately so that the effect can be seen. Shopkeepers in markets have been hassled and they have been extorted and mistreated exponentially by the BJP. When we get MCD under us we will stop all the ways in which they have been harassed. We will also work on making proper roads and drains in gullies that have been neglected by the Corporation so far.
One of the key highlights in this entire campaign by AAP leaders has been the problem of garbage. How will AAP eradicate it?
The success of any task depends on the motivation of the team. The problem with MCD is that the 'Karamcharis' are not motivated. We will start by strengthening our team and making contractual 'Karamcharis' into permanent employees and salaries of all employees will be disbursed on time so they will be motivated to work. Proper management is also needed. Once the garbage is collected disposal will be done after segregation and the entire process needs to be managed systematically. There are experts from all over the world who have approached us to manage the four garbage mountains and they have the latest technology in this field available to them but since MCD was not under our rule we could not do anything. Once we have it then we will start executing our plans. We will invite experts from across the globe to come up with the best solution and execute it as soon as possible.
What changes will we see in governance once MCD is also under AAP?
People will see more clean streets, control of stray animals, better MCD parks. Delivery of our promises will be our priority.
Hardeep Singh Puri has promised housing to slum dwellers. What is AAP promising to the people?
Firstly it is not under the MCD, and it is a myth. He is lying as you can see that in eight years they have given only 3,000 houses so at that rate they will need hundreds of years to provide a house to the rest of the 'jhuggies'. This is not a blueprint of the Central government, the work is in progress but this is not an MCD concern. For now, the concern is why has garbage not been cleaned? What is taking so long? The immediate question is why are there so many stray animals on the streets? Why are local streets so bad and parks in such dilapidated conditions?
