South body using crisis centres to run labs, parking area

According to a reply provided to a member of the House, land was acquired by the corporation in July 2012 for the construction of a DMC at Dwarka. However, the site is currently being used to operate the corporation’s House Tax department.

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Sources said the Dwarka plot has an area of 8,000 sq mts of which “1,000 sq mts has been used for the construction of a building”. “This two-storeyed building is presently being used by the House Tax department. However, there is a proposal to construct the building for the DMC which is yet to be awarded,” a source said. The total expenditure of the project is Rs 3.15 crore.

However, the opposition said that papers presented in the House state that no amount has been spent by the corporation in procuring any equipment for disaster management since they were last made available by the Delhi government in 2005.

“The DMC at R K Puram is being used to run a municipal lab while the one at Raghubir Nagar has been proposed as a multilevel parking site,” leader of the opposition Farhad Suri told the House.

Additionally, the DMC at Okhla does not have any staff to run the centre.

The Congress has also stated that the operation of other municipal functions from the DMCs “is in violation of the purpose for which land was acquired from the DDA.

“No precautions have been taken. No efforts made to make the DMCs effective. Equipment is going to be outdated since it has been 10 years since it was procured. If an earthquake were to cause damage in the city, the corporations will be totally unprepared to handle it,” Suri said.

Responding to these allegations, Mayor Subhash Arya said the project has been held up due to the lack of funds from the Delhi government.

“The government was to provide Rs 150 crore for the Dwarka DMC. That money has not been provided for the last five years. This is why the House Tax department has been allowed to use the land,” Arya said.