Illegal walls, ramps targeted near Defence Colony, vehicles fined
NEW DELHI: The three municipal agencies on Friday continued their crackdown against encroachments in the city with the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) demolishing illegal constructions done by 35 shops on busy Bhishma Pitamah Marg, adjacent to Defence Colony in south Delhi.
Encroachments such as boundary walls, staircases and ramps were targeted during the drive on Bhishma Pitamah Marg, officials said. The targeted establishments housed branch offices of banks like ICICI, Axis, IndusInd and Yes Bank, said a senior officer of the building department of the SDMC.
The drive started around 11 am on Friday along with the Delhi Police and the action continued till late in the evening.
“Bhishma Pitamah Marg is a commercial stretch and as per Delhi Master Plan 2021, the commercial plots on these stretches can’t have boundary walls or any other structures in the front,” said senior SDMC official.
This was the second time in last 10 days that the SDMC carried the drive on Bhishma Pitamah Marg.
The civic agency, meanwhile, revisited the Aurobindo Marg (Gautam Nagar to Andheria Mor) for third time on Friday and impounded or fined 17 vehicles for illegal parking. On Friday, the north, south and east corporations impounded 130 vehicles and removed 300 permanent and temporary encroachments.
Meanwhile, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) demolished 42 permanent structures at Mangal Bazaar area.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation conducted drives at Majnu Ka Tila to Mall Road and surrounding area where temporary constructions in the form of shops and staircase on the pavements were removed.
Similar encroachments were removed from stretches such as Britannia Chowk to Anukampa Chowk, Mukarba Chowk to Sanjay Gandhi transport Nagar MCD office, and Panchkuian Road to Jhandewalan Metro station and at the New Delhi Railway Station, officials said. NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday slammed municipal corporations for permitting unauthorised constructions or deviations by charging “compounding fees” from owners.
A bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice C Hari Shankar remarked that charging compounding fees has become a “revenue generating business” for the civic bodies. “Do you know the meaning of compounding? Ask your officers to state the meaning of compounding. This is the best you can do compounding, it is a business for you,” the bench said adding compounding is not the way to stop illegal construction.
The court’s observations came while hearing two PILS alleging unauthorised construction in two properties in Mehrauli.
“Unfortunately, the municipal corporations have been compounding those deviations from the sanctioned building plans. The same has been converted into revenue,” the bench said.