NEW DELHI: A reply to a short notice in the standing
committee meeting has revealed major irregularities in North Delhi Municipal Corporation's
escrow account. The account, which comprises collections from parking and conversion charges and is meant exclusively for developing parking facilities, has only Rs 24.9 crore as balance. There is no account of how the remaining Rs 1,310 crore was spent by the corporation.
An amount of Rs 1,364.40 crore has been collected under this fund since 2006. The corporation has admitted to spending only Rs 29.14 crore from this account on parking projects. But despite this, the balance left in the account is just Rs 24.9 crore.
The short notice stated that "Rs 1,090.36 crore was collected from 2006 to 2018 (till August) under conversion charges and Rs 274.04 crore was collected from the same period under parking charges. Till date, Rs 29.14 crore has been utilised... and Rs 24.90 crore is the balance as of now (sic)".
Traders' associations have repeatedly raised the question of where the money collected from them has been utilised. Sanjay Bhargava, president of the
Chandni Chowk Vyapar Mandal, said the funds collected by the civic body from conversion and parking charges were used for paying salaries to its employees.
"We had filed an RTI and, in reply, the north civic body had stated that the funds collected from parking and conversion charges in escrow account were diverted for paying salaries to the employees. The fund was supposed to be used for developing parking spaces and market areas. However, no work has happened in the past decade and the money paid by the traders has been mismanaged," Bhargava alleged.
Additional commissioner (finance) of the north civic body didn't comment on the matter. He is, however, learnt to have directed the department to investigate the matter and submit its report by next week.