ex-delhi-chief-secy-bjp-must-focus-on-housing-waste-issues

Shailaja Chandra, the former chief secretary of Delhi, has called on the BJP-led government to give priority to important urban governance issues like waste management, migrant housing, and agency coordination. The 81-year-old former bureaucrat, who was also the Secretary in the Union Ministry of Health, said that the most urgent issue facing Delhi is the unplanned settlement of migrant workers.

Chandra emphasised that since people are still coming to Delhi in search of employment, migration is unavoidable. She pointed out that although the government cannot supply everyone with housing, power, and water, it also cannot permit uncontrolled settlements on public property without the necessary drainage and road systems. She emphasised the need for prompt policy action.

Chandra congratulated Chief Minister Rekha Gupta on taking office in an open letter that appeared in a national daily, referring to it as "India's most demanding urban assignment." She urged Gupta to embrace long-term urban planning in order to show political bravery and transcend decades of "appeasement politics." A thorough urban housing strategy is required to stop the establishment of new unapproved colonies, Chandra said, pointing out a significant discrepancy between the Delhi Development Authority's zoning regulations and the actual situation on the ground.

 

She noted that because public land is not protected, it is the most susceptible to encroachment and demanded that urgent action be taken to stop future infractions. Chandra maintained that since Delhi's carrying capacity is being surpassed every day, new encroachments must be stopped immediately even though it may take some time to correct previous mistakes.

She also brought attention to Delhi's numerous civic and planning agencies' dispersed responsibilities, which leads to a lack of accountability. She emphasised that administrative silos are created by the independent operation of departments like the DDA, MCD, PWD, land and building department, revenue department, and police. Chandra emphasised how crucial it is to dismantle these silos in order to improve execution and coordination.

Chandra stated that Delhi could take a cue from Indore's solid waste management techniques. She commended Indore's waste collection model, in which the municipal corporation itself collects waste in six different categories straight from homes without the need for outsourcing. Strong penalties for non-segregation, along with public accountability, have made the system effective, she said, adding that the city does not have any open garbage collection points or tall landfills. She claimed that Delhi needs to emulate the success, which was made possible by close coordination between the political and administrative leadership.

Chandra also offered her thoughts on Rekha Gupta, the recently appointed female chief minister of Delhi. Considering her personal encounters with former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, she stated that women in leadership roles frequently emphasise neatness and meticulousness. "Such instincts for cleanliness and structure are often found in female leaders," she said, recalling Dikshit's insistence on hiring a good housekeeper for the Delhi Secretariat as one of her first administrative decisions.

Chandra described how inter-agency disputes can cause even simple environmental projects to be delayed, citing her experience with the National Green Tribunal's Yamuna Monitoring Committee (YMC). She recalled how various authorities, from the Railways to the Defence, claimed overlapping jurisdiction, making it frequently take more than an hour in meetings to resolve issues over a single drain. In order to avoid bureaucratic snags and guarantee outcomes, she emphasised the necessity of micromanagement and the participation of outside specialists, such as engineers and architects.

 

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Chandra also expressed worry about Delhi's administrative system's lack of accountability, especially in the last ten years. According to her, this culture needs to change because there has been "no accountability at all" over the past ten years. She described the current situation as a "golden opportunity" to implement significant reforms since all three levels of government—the federal, state, and local—are now controlled by a single political party.

Chandra made it clear in her open letter to the chief minister that she was not looking for an advisory position and had no political aspirations. She claimed that her only objective was to provoke a reaction at what she called a "moment of reckoning." "You can interrupt the decay or you can inherit," she wrote, urging the chief minister to take decisive action.

If the new chief minister can use the backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Chandra contended, she has a unique chance to break with the past and even surpass the legacy of the late Sheila Dikshit. She charged that successive governments had turned the steady influx of migrants into a tool of patronage by prioritising vote-bank politics over careful planning. She gave examples of how planning and environmental regulations have been regularly disregarded, such as the free utility provision and the retroactive legalisation of temporary settlements.

 

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Chandra's letter presented a bleak picture of Delhi's current situation, including the Yamuna River's continued degradation, seven million people living in unapproved colonies, and industrial effluents containing carcinogens being dumped into stormwater drains. But appeasement politics still exist, she bemoaned. She blamed legislative actions that have allowed for extensive encroachments on both public and agricultural land, judicial verdict reversals, and ad hoc policymaking for the progressive decline of urban planning. She urged the government to publicly announce that no more encroachments would be permitted and demanded an end to this cycle of "endless retrofitting."

In cooperation with the state administrative apparatus, Chandra suggested imposing stringent restrictions on the future regularisation of illegal colonies and utilising all available enforcement instruments. She also suggested the construction of temporary housing structures for new arrivals, the establishment of "migration-responsive" housing close to employment centres, and a system for allocating services based on actual need rather than political considerations.

 

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