The establishment of community reading rooms on vacant government land to the regularisation of thousands of contractual workers is on the agenda of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the session of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that starts on Friday.
The AAP stormed the municipal elections in Delhi in December 2022 by winning 134 seats in the 250-member house. These were the first elections to the MCD after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government merged the erstwhile east, north, and south civic bodies of Delhi last year. The BJP came second with 104 and Congress was driven to irrelevance with just nine seats.
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MCD Mayor Shelly Oberoi of AAP said that the biggest agenda would be to regularise around 5,000 contractual sanitation workers. She further said that the conversion of domestic breeding checkers (DBCs) into multi-tasking staff (MTS) is also on the agenda.
On its part, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set to raise the issue of "selling of" government hospitals and the rising dengue cases. The Congress party has also indicated it would raise health issues.
AAP's agenda for MCD session
The setting up of community reading rooms on the vacant land with the MCD is on the cards along with the regularisation and promotion of contractual workers.
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The Indian Express reported that the MCD under AAP is set to establish reading rooms at unutilised vacant garbage ‘dhalaos’, offices, and schools among other buildings of the MCD.
The Express further reported that instituting pension to the contractual workers is also on the agenda.
"The provision for pension will be a step towards meeting a decade-old demand of MCD contractual workers, especially 3,100 Domestic Breeding Checkers, who are public health workers hired to keep a check on vector-borne diseases, and 5,000 sanitation workers," reported The Express.
BJP to protest healthcare privatisation, Congress to raise dengue spike
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress in the Opposition benches are set to raise the issues related to healthcare to take on the AAP in the MCD House.
The BJP is set to criticise the proposal of AAP-run MCD to hand over 60 MCD dispensaries to private lab operators, according to The Express.
"The AAP is selling municipal assets in the name of outsourcing healthcare services… they’re talking about privatising all our hospitals by selling them to NGOs, they’re making DBCs multi-tasking staff; they should regularise contractual workers as they had promised during the MCD polls. The dengue trend is alarming so we also plan on holding the AAP accountable for the increasing dengue cases in the city," said BJP's Raja Iqbal Singh, also the Leader of Opposition, as per The Express.
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Singh further criticised the AAP for not sharing the agenda of the MCD in advance. He said the agenda papers were shared just 24 hours before the session, which he said was a violation of the law governing MCD.
Meanwhile, Congress councillors have planned to raise health concerns from a rise in dengue cases and soaring air pollution, according to The Express.
Delhi has so far reported around 5,000 dengue cases this year, which is the highest in at least five years.
Moreover, Delhi is also facing a worsening air quality situation where air quality index (AQI) has been in the 'poor' quality for five days and is expected to worsen as stubble burning in Punjab rises and Diwali approaches when firecrackers would add to the situation. The low-wind and fall in temperature also compound the situation.
