Mayor meets Rajnath, seeks financial assistance for EDMC

The cash-strapped East Delhi Municipal Corporation, which is running into losses amounting to Rs 500 crore, today sought financial assistance from the Union Home Ministry to come out of the red.
East Delhi Mayor Meenakshi accompanied by EDMC's Leader of House Ram Narayan today met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him of the situation faced by the debt-ridden civic body.
The Mayor told Singh that EDMC is running into losses amounting to Rs 500 crore and would need financial help of at least Rs 900 crore.
"After the trifurcation (of the erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the EDMC has been facing financial problems. At the time of trifurcation the Delhi government had promised an aid to compensate the financial losses but released Rs 335 crore only as a loan. Since then the EDMC has not received any financial help from the Delhi government," Meenakshi said.

She further said that because of "shortage of funds" the corporation is facing difficulties in disbursing old-age pension, salaries to its employees, payment to contractors and, carrying out development works.
The East Corporation requires at least Rs 1,200 crore annually for giving salaries and disbursing old-age pension and doing other important functions, the EDMC said in a statement.

Singh assured the Mayor of all possible help at the earliest.
The financially-troubled municipal body had been looking for avenues to come out of the debt.
Recently a delegation from the EDMC, including the Mayor met with Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to bail it out of debt.

The erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was trifurcated into three separate civic bodies -- North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), a move that is blamed by many civic officials as a root cause of many problems faced by the three bodies now.