DJB BUDGET BY SHIELA DIKSHIT IS MISLEADING AND ATTEMPTS TO CREATE SCOPE FOR MORE CORRUPTION

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit presented Delhi Jal Board (DJB) budget 2013-14 yesterday. The budget is misleading and does not address the problems faced by common Delhi-ite.  It only creates space and scope for more corruption. The budget would burden Delhi people by burning a hole in their pocket further, and refrains from talking about services that will be given to them.

Even though the budget mentions that DJB is in profit since the last three years, however, the common man has not benefitted from this. Shiela Dixit has failed to address the core issues and needs of a common man in Delhi like inflated water bills, water scarcity, contaminated water supply or quality issues, pollution in Yamuna, etc. It does not address issues that a common man was expecting to be addressed in the budget like 80 MGD water that was supposed to be received through Munak canal. Contrary to this, Shiela Dixit budget is a repeat of last year’s budget speech which ensures profits to private companies.  

·         The budget indicates that DJB has earned profit of Rs. 527.93 crores in 2011-12 and Rs 465.8 crores in 2012-13. Why is this profit not being shared with public by decreasing in the water tariff?

·         It has been proved that DJB’s water tariffs are designed for the recovery of Rs 5000 crore whereas DJB’s expenditure on plan is well below Rs. 2000 crore.

·         Sheila Dixit fails to bring a single drop of water through Munak canal since more than last 7 years. More than Rs 500 crore of public money was spent to construct the canal. Three Water Treatment Plants, constructed with around Rs 800 crores, has not been utilized for last many years due to unavailability of water from Munak Canal.  

·         Budget does not indicate any concrete plan to treat sewage and clean Yamuna.  Though Delhi has a huge infrastructure to treat 580 MGD of domestic sewerage, it only treats 350 MGD. The rest is discharged into Yamuna as untreated sewage due to which Yamuna is as dirty as before despite spending thousands of crores of rupees.

·         Only private companies are getting benefits in her regime and people are getting inflated bills without sufficient and quality water.

Water is a basic necessity and the DJB – a non-profit civic agency - is responsible for providing affordable water to Delhi-ites. Mere reading of the budget proves that Sheila Dixit is trying to convert water which is a social liability of the government to a commodity for minting profits by MNCs. The DJB income-expenditure data is as under-

Year		Income		Expenditure		Profit
2010-11		1325.04		1243.68		81.36
2011-12		1911.96		1383.64		528.32
2012-13		2145.35		1679.55		465.8
2013-14		2082.43		1848.86		233.57 (estimate)

In crores

This means that DJB which is responsible for providing affordable water to citizens has earned more than 1000 crores in last two years. Recently when Arvind Kejriwal broke his upwas in Sunder Nagari on April 6th, he had declared that AAP would provide 20 KL of water free of cost to Delhi-ites. When calculated, the cost for providing 20 KL to Delhi people comes to about Rs 464 crores.  The above table is self-explanatory, and this is where the cost for providing free water would come from.

Unfortunately Shiela Dikshit who is also the Chairperson of Delhi Jal Board has not shown any interest in sharing this profit with public by decreasing the tariff.

Another interesting fact is that the water tariff of DJB is designed to recover Rs 5000 crore from citizens of Delhi. The budget figure reflects that DJB is able to recover 2145.35 crore as revenue currently. If we co-relate this with CAG’s recent report that DJB is able to raise bills of only 40% people, it is clear that if 100% recovery is made then these figures would be around 5000 crores. People of Delhi want to know who designed these inflated tariffs? For whose benefit are the citizens being overburdened with such heavy water tariffs?

AAP strongly believes that these tariffs are designed under the pressure of World Bank and MNCs to benefit the corrupt and private companies who are anticipated to take control of Delhi’s water.

 

The budget also reflects the big political failure of Chief Minister Sheila Dixit as she has failed to fulfill the interest of Delhi citizens while dealing with Central and Haryana Government despite the fact that both these government are being run by her own party. This failure relates to Munak Canal which is waiting for water for last 7 years. Munak Canal was constructed with the expenditure of more than 500 crore to replace the kacchi canal. It is anticipated that it will save 80 MGD of water that will quench the thirst of people living in outer Delhi, Bawana, Nagloi, Dwarka and Okhla. To treat the saved water DJB constructed three Water Treatment Plants at Dwarka (50 MGD), Bawana (20 MGD) and Okhla (20 MGD). But years have passed and not a single drop of water came through this canal. Thousands of crores of rupees were spent on infrastructure but people are as thirsty as before. Shiela Dixit is least interested in resolving the issue and wants to create water crises in Delhi so that she can bring her water privatization agenda in the fore-front.

 

Aam Aadmi Party will take this issue to public and will raise a mass movement. AAP will expose the “Neeti and Niyat” (Policies and indentations) of this government to the common man of Delhi. AAP has already announced that next Delhi Assembly elections would be focused on the corruption in Delhi in Water and Electricity.