RWAS meet SC panel over sealing drive

NEW DELHI: Prior to presenting their case before the amicus curiae about the alleged “shortcomings” in the amendments approved by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in the master plan, a group of RWAS on Thursday met the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee conducting the sealing drive.

The RWAS said they expressed resentment over “fictitious” residents’ bodies approaching the committee members to stop sealing and apprised them about the status of areas where master plan norms are being misused.

“As per the Delhi Master Plan 1962, a total of 25% of the house can be used for running professional activities on mixed land use or residential lanes, but areas such as Greater Kailash, Defence Colony, Vasant Vihar and Vasant Kunj, we have instances where people have rented out their properties for running professional firms and converted more than 50% the houses for running commercial activity,” said Rajiv Kakria, member, Greater Kailash I RWA. “We requested the committee to target such organisations,” he said.

The RWA members said that due to the alleged lax attitude of civic authorities, people are running commercial establishments in residential areas without any repercussions. “Besides the low cost of land, they need not to pay conversion or parking charges here. Therefore, the cost of acquisition of these shops comes 75% lower in comparison to the shops running in local shopping complex or commercial areas. Our points were appreciated by the members of the monitoring committee,” said Anil Sood, president of NGO Chetna.