BJP seeks probe into environment fund

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 16

A delegation of the BJP led by its state unit president Manoj Tiwari and the Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, Vijender Gupta lodged their protest with the Lt Governor, Anil Baijal urging him for enquiry into non utilization of Rs 1,002-crore fund collected as environment cess.

The delegation said the government failed in improving the environment in spite of having such big amount of fund.

The delegation included state unit vice-president Rajiv Babbar, along with Harish Khurana, Praveen Shankar Kapoor and Neelkant Bakshi.

The delegation brought into the cognisance of the Lt Governor the fact that during the past three years there are many cases, including the Schedule Caste Welfare Fund in which the government has misused the fund allocated for a particular purpose, hence, there is possibility that the environment cess collected by the government has also been diverted on other work.

BJP leaders said the people of Delhi are suffering due to heavy pollution for the past 10 days. But lacklustre attitude of the government has shocked the people as, so far, it has not taken any scientific step to improve the environment in spite of having a fund of Rs 1,000 crore available with it.

BJP leaders said, “Similarly we must take into consideration the fact that a big factor of severe pollution in the city is the scarcity of public buses. During its initial phase the Kejriwal government wanted to privatise the public transport system and that was why it did not take decision to purchase buses, as a result there are only 3,500 public buses in the city whereas it needs 11,000 buses.”