Illegal structures to be razed in N Delhi parks

NEWDELHI: There is a good news in store for kids and morning walkers of north Delhi as a government body has told the Delhi High Court that it would raze all encroachments, including religious structures, from parks.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) also told a bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru that demolition of illegal structures on the public land at Metro Vihar Phase-i and Phase-ii of Holambi Kalan area in north Delhi was planned on September 19, but could not be effected due to lack of police force.

The DUSIB’S reply came on a plea by three individuals, who had alleged that the authorities had failed to take action against some religious structures situated in various parks in the vicinity of the Metro Vihar.

In view of the board’s stand, the court dismissed their plea saying “the apprehension expressed by the petitioners that only one religious structure is being targeted is wholly unfounded”. It directed the police to “cooperate and provide necessary force to the DUSIB and the north Delhi corporation to carry out the necessary action”.

Advocate Shahid Ali, appearing for the three petitioners, had claimed that the authorities were only demolishing a mosque, Bilal Masjid, and was not taking the same action against other allegedly illegal structures located there.

Tamil Nadu, for instance, received 31% excess rainfall leading to flooding while Uttar Pradesh – the largest producer of kharif season food crops – has taken a severe hit with a 29% rainfall deficit. These deficiencies in other states have averaged out in the overall Long Period Average (LPA) of four months, masking the uneven spread of rainfall.

Agriculture ministry officials said the production of food during the kharif season will not go down sharply. “The reports from the states suggest that the crop condition is good and we will get high production,” agriculture commissioner SK Malhotra said. He, however, admitted that a fall in soil moisture is a concern for the rabi season.

“The rabi crop will also be affected. Good kharif rains provide residual soil moisture necessary for rabi sowings,” food policy analyst Devinder Sharma said.

Last week, the government had released the first advanced estimates for kharif food grains predicting the production could decline by nearly 4 million tonne to 134.67 MT this kharif season on account of poor rains as well as floods in some parts of the country.

“They started constructing a month ago … without any support of pillars or iron beams,” said a man who runs an eatery nearby.

The north civic agency’s spokesperson dismissed the allegations, saying the department of environment management services (DEMS) surveys a place requiring a new toilet.

“Toilets are built in areas that record a high footfall. Ajmeri Gate is a busy place and the authorities found it necessary to build another toilet. The unused unit needs to be checked,” he said.

Aya Nagar under the south corporation is teeming with 125,000 people but didn’t have public toilets until two were sanctioned recently. These will be barely hundred metres away from each other.

“There are places such as Jonapur and Ghitorni, where there are no public toilets. More than one lakh people live in these two areas. Repeated appeals to the civic officials have fallen on deaf ears,” alleged Ved Pal, the Congress councilor of the area.

Residents complained that hundreds of people are forced to defecate in the open.

A senior civic official said mobile toilets are being provided in several areas and the municipal corporation will build some soon.

Kalyanpuri in east Delhi has four public toilets and two more are being built along the Chand Cinema road. But six is too low a number for thousands of people living there.

Residents said open defecation is rampant as existing toilets are unusable.

“Nothing was done through the year despite repeated appeals. Now that the campaign is about to enter its fourth year, they started constructing toilets under pressure,” alleged Kuldeep Kumar, the councilor for Kalyanpuri.

A senior official of the east corporation reaffirmed t he agency’s commitment to make the 64 wards of in east Delhi “open defecation free” by October 2.

“We are constructing new toilets and … efforts are on to keep existing toilets operational,” he said. school management of the safety and security lapses through emails and she had no financial power. If she had not sent the emails, she would also have been arrested by the police for her negligence. Her deployment was originally at the sector 40 branch and I have sent her back as keeping her at Bhondsi could have been an issue.”

“If parents have issues they should speak to the school management. Now, it is the school management’s prerogative to retain her in the branch or post her to another. Now it’s up to the sector 40 school management how to utilise her services,” said Singh who is the administrator of the school for three months by a government order.

Ahmed was absolved after he proved his nationality.

There are 100 tribunals set up in the state under the Foreigner (Tribunal) Order of 1964 to determine the status of people whose Indian nationality is found to be doubtful. Their primary job is to detect immigrants who entered India illegally after the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Infiltration of Bangladeshi immigrants is an emotive issue in Assam, which witnessed a sixyear anti-foreigner agitation from 1979. The stir ended after March 25, 1971, was set the cut-off date for detection and deportation of illegal Bangladeshis.

The notice to Hoque mentioned that the district police have charged him with entering Assam illegally without valid documents after March 1971.

The notice issued on July 6 asked Hoque to appear before a court on September 11.

But the 49-year-old failed to do so as the letter reached his ancestral village, Kalahikash, near Boko, nearly 70km from the state capital, after the assigned date.

He will now have to appear before the tribunal on October 13.

Official records say nearly 80,000 foreigners were detected in Assam since 1986 and over 29,000 were deported. Around 200,000 cases are pending in the tribunals.

An interim report submitted earlier this year by a government-appointed committee to suggest measures for protecting land rights of indigenous people said illegal Bangladeshis outnumber indigenous people in 15 of the state’s 33 districts.

I have no doubt that I will get justice. But it pains me when my daughter questions me if this is how the country treats those who serve it for so many years