Illegal rooftop activity weakening CP’s colonial structures

The UPA government’s policy to allow shop owners at Connaught Place to carry out minor repairs in their premises has been misused by them to carry out major repairs, causing huge damage to the 100-year-old colonial structures, according to New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) officials.

It is only after a part of a building collapsed recently in Connaught Place’s C Block, right above the famous Jain Book Agency, that the NDMC ordered a safety audit of Connaught Place’s colonial structures.

“The UPA government had changed the policy in the last years of its governance, because of which the shop owners did not have to seek any clearance or permissions to carry out minor repairs in the buildings, but taking advantage of this, owners have even started illegally constructing some minor structures and even modifying the structures,” a senior NDMC official said.

The Civil Engineering department of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, along with NDMC’s structural engineers, are conducting a safety audit of Connaught Place’s colonial structures, following which a report will be submitted to the NDMC chairman within 20 days.

NDMC officials have also complained of the rampant and illegal use of the terrace and balcony facilities at Connaught Place buildings by shop owners who have sublet their shops.

“The shop owners have been illegally using and overloading the terrace with heavy generators, water tanks, heavy drums filled with diesel, among other things, and this has been going on for quite some time now. Some shops even have more than one heavy generators parked on their terrace. The first floors of the CP buildings were made for residential purposes. The structures are very old and have not been made with modern means and technology; therefore, they do not have the capacity to withstand such pressures. These ille- gal activities have made the buildings very weak over the years,” a NDMC spokesperson told The Sunday Guardian, adding that the changing of interior decorations, electrical wirings, water lines, etc., by different shop owners as per their convenience every now and then, arising out of the continuous letting and subletting of these shops, have further damaged the walls of the buildings.

According to norms, the NDMC bars the use of terrace or balconies on any of its heritage buildings for any kind of commercial activities. The NDMC has decided to ban 21 restaurants in Connaught Place from using their rooftops for any commercial activity and has also sent notices to the identified restaurants, which include Lord of the Drinks, Warehouse Café, Vault Café, Farzi Café, Teddy Boy, among many others.

An NDMC spokesperson told The Sunday Guardian, “No commercial activity will be allowed on rooftops of heritage buildings in CP. We will restrict the use of heavy generators and water tanks in the terrace of the buildings here.” Torture by officials and harsh conditions inside Delhi’s government-run juvenile homes are forcing teen offenders to run away from rehabilitation centers, a juvenile rights watch group has said.

According to Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR), a Delhi-based human rights organisation, last year almost 300 such teen offenders managed to escape from these correctional homes. The Juvenile Justice Act ( JJA), under which juvenile offenders are tried and kept in special homes, was meant to rehabilitate them. But the apathy of officials has apparently defeated the purpose. Currently, Delhi has 27 juvenile homes, housing over 3,000 teen offenders. Sumit Khurana, a senior lawyer, said: “Officers are overburdened, unskilled and often unable to handle teen lawbreakers. The teen offenders kept inside the shelter homes have been found complaining of torture.” “In the recent past, complaints of rape and drug addiction among teen offenders in the shelter homes have increased. Also, these homes do not seem to render psychological care, as prescribed in the JJA,” Khurana said.

“The juvenile home building at Magazine Road, which served as an ammunition warehouse during the British era, was also home last year to the released young offender involved in the gang rape and murder of Nirbhaya. It has almost no welfare officers,” a source told The Sunday Guardian.

“As per the law, there needs to be one officer for every 25 children. Most of the correctional shelters do not have welfare officers. Often, the rooms inside these houses are overcrowded,” a source added. The Centre’s proposal to make Connaught Place a “car free zone” on an experimental basis is facing more hurdles than expected. Connaught Place was scheduled to go car free from 1 February, but the plan is facing severe resentment from the New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA) which had called a half-day strike earlier this week to protest against this move of the government. Also, Delhi Police, responsible for implementing the car free zone plan, is not yet ready with a concrete plan to divert the massive amount of traffic that passes through Connaught Place daily.

Atul Bhargava, president of NDTA, told The Sunday Guardian, “Making Connaught Place a car free zone is an impractical idea. We will not give in to this. Our busi-