Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has approved temporarily of dissolving the Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission (DDCD) and removal of its non-official members till a mechanism is developed for screening and selection of domain experts as its vice chairman and members.
“The whole exercise of creating the DDCD by the incumbent (Delhi) government was only to extend financial benefits and extend patronage to certain favoured political persons of partisan inclinations. Politically appointed persons holding these positions, were allowed to continue on these positions at the whims and fancies of the Chief Minister,” Saxena quoted as saying by his office, on Thursday.
He alleged that there was no screening through a transparent process, and huge salaries were paid from the public exchequer, which were incommensurate to the duties assigned.
“It is a blatant and clear case of nepotism and favouritism in utter disregard of all rules,” the LG said.
He said the Planning Department of Delhi government has put on record that there is no work allocation among the members of DDCD and, therefore, the continuation of non-official members, drawing huge salaries is not only “undesirable” but also patently illegal.
The LG has asked the Finance Department to humanely explore the possibility of recovering salaries paid to these non-official members of DDCD.
Meanwhile, Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj in a post on X wrote, “LG’s dissolving Delhi Dialogue Commission is petty politics. This is well known that all Commissions, Committees, boards of Central Government or BJP ruled state Governments have political appointees without any test/interview. It’s an old practice. Women Commission, SC/ST Commision are all live examples.”