Cost of commotion: each MCD House session comes with a ₹3 lakh tab

MCD House sessions in Delhi plagued by chaos, adjournments, and wasted taxpayer money, with each session costing ₹3 lakh.

Nearly every Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) House session since January this year has seen the same pattern repeat itself — commotion, sloganeering, and adjournment. However, even if the House is called off early without any discussion on public interest issues, the municipality still has to bear the expenses of convening the session, each of which costs the exchequer ₹3 lakh, multiple officials told The Hindu.

The civic agency has convened 10 regular sessions from January to October in accordance with the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, which mandates holding a minimum of one House session every month, giving a chance to the 250 elected councillors to speak about the issues concerning their wards and citizens. In addition, several special sessions are convened during the tabling of the budget and the various elections — Standing Committee, zonal panels, and mayoral polls — that are held every year.

Sharing a breakdown of the expenses incurred in convening a House session, a senior official said each councillor is paid ₹300 to attend a session, which totals to ₹75,000 for all the members. “We also have to procure meal boxes, which cost between ₹90 to ₹100 for all the members, attending mediapersons, and a few employees on duty, all of which adds up to around ₹35,000,” the official said.

Another official said printing the agenda, which usually runs into 250-300 pages, ahead of each session is also a cost-intensive exercise.

“A copy has to be printed for all the councillors and the officials concerned at our office in Civil Lines. These documents, along with several other necessary papers, are then transported to our headquarters in central Delhi,” said the official. He added that several other costs incurred to maintain the House, such as the upkeep of escalators, lifts, and electronic items, including public address systems and laptops, amount to a substantial sum.

While leaders of the three major parties — the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the principal Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Congress — agree that constant ruckus has affected the civic agency’s functioning, they hold each other responsible for the loss of public money.

Durgesh Pathak, the MCD in-charge of AAP, said, “In the last ten months, taxpayers’ money has been wasted because of the way sessions have unfolded.” He added, “If you ever watch the footage of the House proceedings, you’ll see the BJP councillors creating mayhem because they know if the House functions normally, the corruption they did for 15 years will come out in the open.”