Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj has responded to BJP’s allegations on the Irrigation and Flood Control (IFC)

Department of delhi Government. He has said that after taking charge of the department, Principal Secretary of the

department ashish Kundra has not sent any file to him. Bhardwaj alleged that since assuming charge in March

2023, no file related to the department, be it administrative approval, in-principle approval, payment processing or

completion of works, is being sent to me. Saurabh Bhardwaj, in a written note, had raised questions as to why no

file was being sent to the minister for in-principle approval, while he had directed Principal Secretary Ashish

Kundra to send all files related to projects costing more than Rs 25 lakh. The files should be sent to the Minister

for in-principle approval. He said that at least the minister should know about the projects being started by the IFC

department of delhi government using public funds.

Kundra did not respond to the note

Bhardwaj said that surprisingly, Kundra did not respond to his note, rather the file was sent to Finance Department

Principal Secretary ashish Chandra Verma for his opinion. He alleged that ashish Kundra and ashish Chandra

Verma in collusion declared in writing that Kundra had the authority to approve projects up to Rs 50 crore. As a

result, files related to any project costing up to Rs 50 crore will not be sent to the minister.

What else did Saurabh Bhardwaj say?

Taking a strong dig at the BJP-ruled central government, Bhardwaj said it was unfortunate that due to laws made

by the central government and the Lieutenant governor of delhi, files related to any project worth up to Rs 50

crore have to be sent to the minister in-charge for administrative or in-principle approval. “The files were also not

sent to the minister for payment processing,” he said.