Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, on Wednesday urged Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to immediately give financial assistance to the North, East and South Delhi Municipal Corporations.
As the first step, Mr. Bidhuri said, the Delhi government should immediately release the grant-in-aid and transfer duty for the first quarter of the financial year 2020-21.
This, the LoP said, had already become due and must be paid without loss of time in view of outbreak of COVID-19. Mr. Bidhuri claimed that he had, at two personal meetings and a recent videoconference, made requests to the Chief Minister to provide financial assistance to three civic bodies at the earliest, but to no avail.
“The financial condition of the North civic body is the most serious. Due to the acute shortage of funds, it has not been able to pay salaries to staff. The government help thousands of the civic bodies’ COVID-19 warriors come out of the grave financial crisis,” he said.
A Delhi government official, meanwhile, said, “These are baseless allegations. All dues have been paid. It is very unfortunate that the BJP is playing dirty politics in such difficult times, especially when the AAP-led Delhi government is fully cooperating and working together with the Centre to tackle issues following the outbreak of COVID-19.”