The Delhi Nagar Swaraj Bill, the much trumpeted Bill of the AAP Government will be merged with the proposed draft of the new Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Bill. In an attempt to decentralise power and arm common man in day-to-day decision making, the AAP Government is reportedly in the process of bringing in an Act by clubbing together its proposed Swaraj Bill with two drafts of the new municipal corporation laws in the national Capital.
In other words, there would be provisions of mohalla sabhas in the proposed DMC Act. It is noted that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had resigned over this Bill after lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung refused to table the Bill in the Delhi Assembly in 2014 as it had no prior approval of Raj Niwas.
A document accessed by The Pioneer revealed that the Government wants to merge the Swaraj Bill with two other Municipal Bills. “It has been proposed that Delhi Swaraj Bill may be merged with the Delhi Municipal Corporation Bill 2014, Delhi Municipal Corporation (Election of Councillors) Bill 2014 and a single Bill instead of three Bills may be drafted. The draft of Delhi Municipal Corporation Act has already been submitted to higher authorities.”
Top sources said the Government is working on merging its proposed Swaraj Bill, which it had promised to introduce in its election manifesto, with the drafts of the two municipal bills, to ensure mohalla sabhas in each municipal ward were fully equipped to take financial decisions in their day-to-day functioning. The Government will be reportedly merging its Swaraj draft with the proposed Delhi Municipal Corporation Bill and the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Election of Councillors) Bill, 2014. It was the same Delhi Nagar Swaraj Bill which had forced AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal to quit office after his 49-day stint as the Chief Minister in 2014 after he failed to get it tabled in the State Assembly.
Delhi State Election Commissioner Rakesh Mehta, who has prepared the draft of the new DMC Act to replace the archaic Delhi Municipal Act of 1957, said that there was provision of having ward committees in the Constitution. The officer said that he himself had recommended the same measures to strengthen the ward committees. “But we need to look into the Constitution whether there was any provision to have mohalla sabhas in municipal wards.”
A senior bureaucrat said that the decision to incorporate the proposed drafts of Swaraj Bill with the two other municipal Bills was reportedly taken by Kejriwal during the review meeting of departments held by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia last month. The implementation of the Swaraj Bill was the major thrust of the Aam Aadmi Party during its election campaigning for the Assembly elections in 2013, in which it had managed to win 28 of the 70 seats.
