Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj has slammed the Lieutenant Governor (LG) for failing to suspend key officials at the Asha Kiran Home Shelter despite serious corruption allegations.
The Delhi Cabinet Minister revealed that Rahul Agarwal, previously arrested for bribery, was appointed as the administrator. Today, the Delhi Legislative Assembly’s Petition Committee attempted to conduct a probe but was blocked by the Administration, who has also been neglecting the residents’ basic needs. He pointed out that the LG is shielding corrupt officials and demanded honest, service-minded individuals be placed in charge of the shelter.
Senior AAP leader and Cabinet Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said that for the last two days, the issue of the death of many people living in a home shelter named Asha Kiran in Delhi in July is coming up. “Almost all the people living in this home shelter are intellectually challenged people and such people are physically weak due to being intellectually challenged and often suffer from diseases. Being intellectually challenged, they are not able to take full care of their food and drink. So in such a situation, it is very important that whoever is appointed here to take care of them, should have a spirit of service,” he said.
The Delhi Minister informed that keeping in mind the seriousness of the matter, today a team of MLAs from the Petition Committee of the Delhi Legislative Assembly reached Asha Kiran Home Shelter to investigate the matter, but the administration there did not allow the team of the Petition Committee to enter. Out of helplessness, the team had to stage a sit-in there, a large number of media had gathered there, so under the pressure of the media, the administration allowed the team sent by the Petition Committee to enter the home centre.
Speaking on ‘Services’, Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj stated, “For quite some time now, there has been a debate in Delhi about transfer posting, as to who will have the authority to do the transfer posting. Generally, it sounds very simple. But for any government, the basis of running the system is transfer posting.
If two people were appointed to the post of SHO by passing the exam in the same way at the same time. One of them was honest and the other was corrupt and when their appointments are made, the people of the area understand very well from their conduct, who is honest and who is corrupt.”
He said that this is the main work of the government through transfer and posting. A good officer is given a good department, i.e. a department where the general public is affected even in the case of a petty irregularity. A corrupt officer is given such a posting by the government where there are fewer opportunities for corruption and the working of that officer can be monitored.
Saurabh Bharadwaj said that before holding a press conference here, I spoke to some officials, who told me about Asha Kiran Home Centre, and said that the post of administrator and superintendent in this home centre is very lucrative. There are a lot of opportunities for corruption in it. This is because the tender for food for the people living in the home centre, tender for medicines and contract for other things etc. are under these superintendents and administrators only.
“While asking questions to the BJP-ruled Central Government and the LG, Saurabh Bharadwaj said, what was the thoughts of the LG in giving the responsibility of this home centre to the current administrator Rahul Agarwal. He is the same Rahul Agarwal who was arrested in 2016 in a bribery case. Rahul Agarwal was arrested while taking a bribe of ₹50,000 as SDM and this news was also published in the newspapers,” he added.
The Delhi Minister further added that when the CBI raided the house of Rahul Agarwal in this case, his wife had hidden all the money and jewelry near the tank on the roof. Rahul Agarwal was suspended for 5 years in this case. You took away the power of transfer posting from us to run the system properly, then on what basis did you appoint a corrupt officer, who was suspended for 5 years on the charge of taking bribes, as the administrator of Asha Kiran Home Centre?
While asking a question to the BJP-ruled Central Government and the LG, Saurabh Bharadwaj said that when all these things are available in the public domain, then what was the compulsion that the BJP-led Central Government and LG to hand over the responsibility of this Asha Kiran Home Centre to such a corrupt officer?
Saurabh Bharadwaj mentioned, “We have also received news through the media that the intellectually challenged people living in this Asha Kiran Shelter Home were not being given proper food nor clean drinking water for a long time and the sick people were not even being treated.”
Saurabh Bharadwaj said that when all this information is available in the public domain, why has the LG not suspended the administrator of this Asha Kiran Home Centre till now? What is the LG waiting for? Why has the Secretary of the Social Welfare Department, Vinod Tawle not been suspended till now? “Similarly, in the incident of the death of students in the basement of Rajinder Nagar, I presented all the evidence in public. As a minister, I instructed the Chief Secretary several times to submit the report of desilting and to conduct a third-party audit of desilting, but despite repeated requests, the Chief Secretary neither submitted the report nor got the third-party audit of desilting done. Why has the LG not suspended the Chief Secretary till now?” He affirmed.
Asking another question, Saurabh Bharadwaj said that a mother and son died after falling into a Delhi Development Authority (DDA) drain. Why has the LG not taken any action against the DDA officials till now, even though the DDA comes directly under the LG?