Move comes after a year of Cabinet nod; scheme still needs LG's go-ahead and Parliament will have to approve amendments in Delhi Municipal Corporation Act-1957
A year after being given clearance by the Delhi Cabinet, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's ambitious neighbourhood governance scheme, Mohalla Sabha, has finally taken the first step. Last week, the Delhi government created a statutory body for the scheme, with Revenue Minister Manish Sisodia as its head and Principal Secretaries of various departments as members.
Also, Rs 350 crore will be sanctioned for the scheme in the upcoming Budget.
The objective of organising these Sabhas was to decentralise governance and to empower citizens regarding development-related decisions. This would sound a death knell for the Resident Welfare Associations, the mainstay of the Congress and Kejriwal's predecessor Sheila Dikshit .
"The statutory body, however, needs approval from Lieutenant Governor (LG) Anil Baijal and some amendments in the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act-1957 will have to be approved in the Parliament," a source said, adding that the AAP government has made the first move in the much-hyped project after an entire year.
In 2016-2017 annual Budget as well, under the Citizen Local Area Development Scheme (CLADS), Sisodia had allocated Rs 350 crore for the Mohalla Sabha scheme. Not a single paisa, however, was used as the Finance Department of the government had raised the objection that there was "no existence of any government body called Mohalla Sabha".
In June last year, the Delhi Cabinet had approved formation of 2,972 Mohalla Sabhas in all 70 Assembly constituencies across the city. As per the proposal accessed by DNA, the Mohalla Sabhas will be employing as many as 6,603 people. "It will be a kind of parallel bureaucracy on the ground," a source said.
The Cabinet note stated: "Each Mohalla Sabha shall be geographically contiguous and will consist of a group of polling stations, and depending on the size, each will have 3,000-6,000 voters."
The note further stated that each district will have around 300-350 Sabhas, and each Assembly constituency will comprise at least 40 of these. The AAP government will be able to get direct information on suggestions by the people on projects to be taken up in their localities. The note also stated that only registered voters can take part in the exercise. AAP legislators have been asked to contribute Rs 4 crore from their MLA-LAD funds to implement the decision.
At the Mohalla level, the government has approved the proposal to create two coordinators, with at least one of them being a woman. They would be paid Rs 5,000 per month to meet transportation and other expenses. Apart from that, Rs 1.20 lakh per annum will be given to them for publicity, dissemination of information, printing and distribution of pamphlets, and arrangement of meetings.
For the first two years, these 5,944 coordinators will be appointed by Delhi government's revenue department and after that the state government will hold elections to appoint them. Apart from that, a Project Manager will be given a salary of Rs 50,000 per month in each Assembly constituency.
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