SC panel says sealing has slowed down, tells municipal bodies to get act together
NEW DELHI : The Supreme Courtappointed monitoring committee has told the civic agencies to pull up their socks in view of a a slowdown in the drive to seal commercial establishments violating municipal norms in the Capital.
The committee has asked all the three commissioners in North, South and East Delhi municipal corporations to execute the drive forcefully in all zones.
“Though we don’t give any day-to-day targets to the municipalities, the data provided by the civic bodies in the last few days about the number of shops sealed shows that the drive has slowed down,” said a monitoring committee member on the condition of anonymity.
Sources in the municipal corporations said the sealing operation has been slowed down in city after January 26, mainly because of the non-availability of police force.
“Even on Monday, we had to postpone the sealing action in Janakpuri and Dabri areas for the same reason. While in Hari Nagar, due to strong resistance from locals only four stilt parkings were sealed,”said senior SDMC official.
A monitoring committee member said they have written to the Delhi Police officials to provide enough force.
“We also need time to collect survey report for defaulters misusing the residential properties such as using the stilt parking for commercial use,” said senior official from North corporation. The civic agency has sealed 57 stilt parkings in Pitampura, Rohini, Kirti Nagar, Adarsh Nagar and Subzi Mandi areas.
Having failed to get any relief from the ongoing sealing drive despite holding several rallies, the traders’ associations are now demanding for the privati- sation of the Delhi Development Authority and municipal corporations.
“We will soon hand over a copy of proposal to the union ministers for housing and urban affairs and ministry of home affairs. The two agencies have failed to implement even 25% of provisions mentioned in Delhi Master Plan 2021 such as developing local shopping complexes, integral freight centres and commercial centres. As a result locals are suffering. For the next master plan (2021-41) also, no civic survey has been conducted so far,” said Praveen Khandelwal, secretary general, Confederation of All India Traders.