AAP govt, MCDS clash over land use notification
NEWDELHI: Amid the ongoing sealing drive i n city, tensions between the Aam Aadmi Party government and the Bjp-ruled municipal bodies in Delhi are escalating.
On Friday, Delhi’s urban development minister Satyendar Jain had called a meeting with the three mayors to discuss the issue of notifying 351 roads for commercial and mixed land use in order to give relief to the traders.
Jain gave 10 days time to civic bodies for submitting report on the authenticity of the survey conducted by the municipal corporations on these roads, with separate lists of roads identified under mixed land use and commercial categories.
“Our purpose is to confirm whether the municipal bodies actually conducted any survey before identification of 351 roads or not. They also have to give us the details related to commercial establishment and parking facility over these identified roads,” he said.
He said the reply from three civic bodies will be submitted to the Supreme Court. “As per apex court’s order in recent past, roads can be notified under mixed land use and commercial categories only after the court’s approval,” said a Delhi government official.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat said that the minister wants to keep the issue hanging and that’s why they were asking for “so many details”.
“He is just complicating the notification issue, without understanding the sufferings of the traders due to ongoing sealing,” said Sehrawat.
North Delhi Municipal Corporation mayor Preety Agarwal appealed the minister to “stop playing politics and look for a lasting solution to the issue”.
“Of the 351 roads, 156 fall in the jurisdiction of north corporation. If the roads are notified, then the traders on these roads will be able to run their businesses in legitimate manner,” she said.
On Thursday, Jain had written letters to the three mayors on this issue, mentioning that the department had failed to receive any response from the municipal commissioners despite writing five letters.
To this, Sehrawat said that the municipal corporation had approved the list of 351 roads for notification as commercial, mixed land use and pedestrian shopping street in 2007 only and the letter was sent to the Delhi government for approval.
“In 2016, we gave further clarifications to issues raised by the principal secretary of the department. Had we received any other meeting notice, the corporations would have definitely attended,” Agarwal said.