New Delhi: Delhi BJP has sought to punch holes in Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's claim that Delhi is the richest city in the country, saying there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor due to the "flawed" policies of the city's government.
Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel termed as "bizzare" Dikshit's statement that Delhi is the richest state in the country and said, "The chief minister continues to disseminate pack of lies. Around half of the Delhi population lives in slums, JJ clusters and unauthorised colonies."
"A state gets rich when most of its people get rich. With only a handful of people getting richer during Congress regime and most of the population being pushed to fringes, it is bizarre for any chief minister to make such claim," Goel said in a statement on Sunday.
Goel was reacting to the statement made by Dikshit at the release of 'Delhi Statistical Handbook-2013' on Thursday.
The BJP leader said,"A few individuals might have got rich but the city has more than 1,600 unauthorised colonies, 685 slum colonies, 45 resettlement colonies and no less than 685 slums according to government's own official records. The sub-standard living conditions in most of these areas is visible to everyone."
"Can we call a city richest, whose half population needs highly subsidised food grains to survive?" he asked.
Slamming the statistics mentioned in the book, Goel said "the Delhi government has tried to paint a rosy picture about public transport through this statistical handbook by saying DTC services were availed by around 46.
Citing a study report by Institute of Urban Transport (India) and Urban Mass Transit Company Limited, he said the availability of public transport (buses and Metro) "in Delhi per 1,000 people is a shocking 0.504. The average waiting time for all 517 DTC bus routes is 70 minutes, probably because of the less frequent bus trips in sparsely populated undeveloped areas."
He also criticised the Dikshit government for its claim that the health infrastructure has expanded substantially and said the Delhi Human Development Report released only a few days ago by the Chief Minister says that "the per capita availability of public health facilities in Delhi is dismally low, with less than 2 clinics per 10,000 people."
Goel said the CAG report this year also mentioned the health department's ambulances are misused or unused, and are not even equipped with basic facilities and added that despite announcement for seven hospitals in August 2007, foundation stone for only one has been laid at Burari while nothing has happened at Madipur, Siraspur, Hastsal, Vikaspuri, Ambedkar Nagar, Sarita Vihar and Pooth Khurd.
He also slammed Delhi government's claim in the handbook that total number of school in the city were 5122 during 2011-12 in which 41.54 lakh children were enrolled at different level.
"The facts again speak otherwise. The education scenario is grim in Delhi. The Delhi government has shut down 80 government schools even as the population is increasing 4-5 lakh every year. More than 12000 positions of school teachers are lying vacant in Delhi," he said.
