New Delhi: Reacting to the approval granted to the anti-corruption branch by LG to investigate former health ministers Satyendar Jain and Saurabh Bharadwaj, AAP, in a statement, alleged that routine project delays were weaponised by BJP as alleged corruption.AAP also questioned why no CBI inquiries were launched into the 10-year delay of the bullet train project or the 53% of central govt infrastructure projects, which faced time overruns of more than three years and cost escalations.Bharadwaj said that the sanctions for the construction of hospitals were given in 2017-18 and 2021 and the estimates were also approved at the same time, while he became the health minister in 2023. “After I became the health minister, no file related to the cost or revised estimates ever came to me,” he claimed.BJP, however, alleged that AAP govt never paid attention to any corruption complaints earlier, but will now have to answer to every investigation. AAP alleged that BJP govt and LG turned governance into a “perpetual joke.” “They are wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money on frivolous investigations. How can anyone imagine that a delay in an infrastructure project would be called corruption—especially at the level of ministers? If this is the yardstick for registering corruption cases, then dozens of cases should be filed every day against central govt ministers,” the party said in a statement.“As of March 2023, 56% of central govt projects monitored by the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation were delayed, with an average time overrun of more than three years. By July 2023, 809 projects were reported delayed, with a cumulative cost escalation of over Rs 4.65 lakh crore. The original cost of 835 delayed projects (as of Jan 2023) was Rs 10.88 lakh crore, which escalated to Rs 14.07 lakh crore—a cost overrun of nearly Rs 3.2 lakh crore. Will CBI register cases against the respective central govt ministers?” AAP asked. It added that the target completion date of the flagship bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad was 2023, which was not expected to be completed before 2033. “By July 2022, expenditure reached Rs 28,442 crore, with revised estimates placing the final cost at Rs 2 lakh crore—an 85% escalation from the original Rs 1.08 lakh crore,” AAP said.The party stated that, as per the central govt data, common causes for delays in projects included late regulatory approvals, land acquisition issues, financial constraints, contractors’ non-performance, environmental clearances and bureaucratic inefficiencies. “Can corruption cases be registered against ministers for these reasons?” it questioned. Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said Kejriwal govt “boasted” about “international-level health services” for 10 years, but the people of Delhi clearly saw through the “corruption” in the health department. “Hence, it became difficult for Satyendar Jain and Saurabh Bhardwaj to even save their security deposit in the elections,” he added.
