Delhi minister accuses LG of taking credit for AAP govt's efforts to clean Yamuna

NEW DELHI: Delhi water minister Saurabh Bhardwaj on Saturday criticized lieutenant governor V K Saxena, accusing him of wrongfully claiming credit for the Yamuna river cleaning efforts led by the Kejriwal government.
Bhardwaj dismissed the LG's claims as "misleading and baseless," and as of now, there has been no response from the LG's office.
Bhardwaj's statement came in response to a press release issued by the LG Secretariat a day earlier. The press release stated that the Najafgarh drain, responsible for around 70 percent of the wastewater discharge into the Yamuna, had witnessed a 33 percent decrease in biological oxygen demand (BOD) levels compared to the previous year. The reduction was attributed to the intervention of a high-level committee led by Saxena.
Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is a crucial parameter used to assess water quality, indicating the amount of oxygen required by aerobic microorganisms to decompose organic material in a water body. A BOD level below 3 milligrams per liter is considered good.
Challenging Saxena to provide evidence of any new projects or initiatives he initiated before taking credit for the government's work, Bhardwaj emphasized that the progress made in cleaning the Yamuna was a direct result of Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's six-point action plan, which was announced in November 2021.
He dismissed the claims made by the LG's office as baseless and misleading, pointing out that the LG does not have the financial authority to approve projects in the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) or the Irrigation and Flood Control Department (IFC).
Bhardwaj also accused the LG office of falsely presenting minutes of meetings and presentations from the DJB and IFC, deceptively claiming them as the sole achievements of the LG.
The water minister also highlighted the achievements of the DJB, such as connecting jhuggi-jhopri clusters to the sewer network, tapping and diverting drains, desilting trunk sewers, providing house service connections, and upgrading sewage treatment plants.
According to the Constitution, matters related to land, law and order, and police fall under the jurisdiction of the LG, while others come under the purview of the Delhi government.
The Supreme Court recently issued an order placing the services department under the Delhi government, but the Centre later issued an ordinance granting the LG control over the bureaucracy in the national capital.
(With inputs from PTI)