Minister Bharadwaj directs third party audit of drain desilting by June 30

Delhi Urban Development Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Thursday directed Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to conduct a third party audit of the claims of desilting of drains by agencies like PWD and MCD by June 30.

The minister has also asked the chief secretary to submit a list of drains which have been desilted as on June 10 by different departments of the Delhi government.

According to the order, in a review meeting dated June 10 concerning the desilting process, the public works department (PWD) had claimed that out of 2,156 km long drains, about 61 per cent of drains, that is, 1,293 km drains, have been completely desilted. Similarly, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) had also claimed that 87.14 per cent of drains taken under phase-1 have been completely desilted.

Bharadwaj had sought an exhaustive list of de-silted drains from PWD Principal Secretary A Anbarasu and MCD Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti to verify the claims of the agencies by June 11.

However, the data has not been provided till date, the order stated.

Highlighting the delay in providing the information, Bharadwaj wrote, "As per the experience of the previous years, most of the desilting work is not completed on ground while reports are presented on papers. Therefore, it is very important to verify the claims of the agencies as to whether the drains have been desilted on ground level or not.

"It is with this intention that PWD and MCD were asked to provide the exhaustive list of all the drains, which have been desilted completely as on 10.06.2024, so that the random check can be done on the ground to verify the claims of Anbarasu and Gyanesh Bharti and their respective departments," the order stated.

It said that till date no such report was submitted to the office of urban development minister and cited a High Court direction for a third party audit of all such works from independent agencies.

"It is hereby directed that all the claims of the desilting by the agencies like PWD and MCD should be audited by third party independent agencies. It is also worth noting that these claims must be verified well before the monsoon arises in the city because once it rains in the city, the department will take excuse that the silt in the drains has been deposited recently due to rains," the order said.

Bharadwaj has asked the chief secretary to provide the list of drains which have been desilted as on June 10 and also ensure that third party audit of the desilting work is conducted by independent agencies before June 30.