New Delhi, Aug 25 (IANS) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Minister of State Vijay Goel on Tuesday highlighted public sufferings due to the nonchalant attitude of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and government officials who allegedly ignore requests from MPs, MLAs, and Corporators for lifting garbage and other waste from their constituencies.
In a post on social media platform X, Goel said, “What an irony that the MCD and government officers aren’t doing their jobs, and the MPs, MLAs, and Corporators are running around the streets and alleys, begging them to get any work done.”
He added that some officials allegedly project routine cleanliness tasks as big favours to the elected representatives, without realising that it is the officials’ primary responsibility not to allow collection of any garbage or construction and demolition waste in areas under their jurisdiction.
Goel on his X post message, in Hindi, said, “If the officials manage to get the garbage picked up from somewhere, they feel like they’ve accomplished something monumental. They don’t even question why the garbage was there in the first place, despite these officials being around.”
“The elected representatives have to plead with these officials over issues like drains, manholes, roads, sewers, electricity, and water. And yet, the work still doesn’t get done. So, who’s bothered about the public in all this?” the BJP leader added.
The former Minister of State’s outburst against “lax” civic officials comes at a time when the Rekha Gupta government has launched a campaign named “Delhi ko Kude se Azadi” – from August 17 to October 2.
Chief Minister Gupta had began the ‘Delhi Ko Kude Se Azadi-Swachhta Abhiyan 2026’ on August 17 at the Kedarnath Sahni Auditorium at the MCD headquarters, encouraging different civic wards to compete for Rs 1 crore prize money.
The cleanliness campaign aims to strengthen the city’s sanitation system further, promote scientific waste management, ensure cleanliness of public spaces, and increase public participation by making citizens more aware of cleanliness, she said.
A brochure on the cleanliness campaign was also released on the occasion.
Minister of State and Delhi BJP President Harsh Malhotra, Delhi Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood, Delhi Mayor Pravesh Wahi, Chief Whip and MLA Abhay Verma and others were present at the programme.
Malhotra said the resolve of ‘Delhi Ko Kude Se Azadi’ is not limited to the sanitation system, but is an effort to make cleanliness a part of people’s thinking and behaviour.
Referring to Mahatma Gandhi’s efforts to link cleanliness with the freedom movement, the Delhi BJP President added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, had called for turning cleanliness into a national movement in his first Independence Day address after taking charge as the country’s Prime Minister.
Despite criticism at the time, the cleanliness campaign became a mass movement across the country and played an important role in providing crores of families with access to dignified toilet facilities.
–IANS
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