Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Burari MLA Sanjeev Jha on Sunday criticized the Delhi government led by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta for its failure to clean the city’s drainage network.
He said this failure has caused major inconvenience to residents across the national capital due to widespread waterlogging.
Speaking at a press conference, Jha stated that even a few minutes of rain left Delhiites stranded indoors, creating uncertainty about whether they could reach home safely.
“The BJP’s ‘vipda’ (disaster) government has created such chaos that people should consider arranging boats before stepping outside,” he said.
He urged the Chief Minister to convene a special assembly session and release a white paper to present the actual condition of the drains. “From top to bottom, their claims remain confined to paperwork; nothing is visible on the ground,” Jha remarked.
Exposing the government’s shifting deadlines, he noted that BJP ministers initially claimed all cleaning would be completed by the end of April. That deadline was later pushed to June 15 and then to June 30.
Jha pointed out that the government’s website indicates the Public Works Department (PWD) maintains 2,140 km of drains—of which 840 km remain uncleared—highlighting that 40% of PWD drains have not been cleaned.
Citing official documents, Jha said similar trends were observed in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Irrigation and Flood Control Department (IFCD).
He noted that this was despite massive budget allocations, including ₹150 crore for drain remodeling, ₹9,000 crore for sanitation and water management, ₹600 crore to the Irrigation Department specifically for flood control, and ₹20 crore for super sucker machines.