Deadline over for paying conversion charge, sealing may resume today
NEW DELHI : With the deadline for depositing ‘ use conversion charge’ by the traders in local markets getting over on Monday, the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee is likely to resume the sealing drive from Tuesday.
“The deadline is over and we will resume the sealing action soon,” said one of the members of the expert committee. However, he refused to share the details of markets going to be targed on Tuesday.
The sealing drive started on December 22 from the Defence Colony market in south Delhi.
However, two weeks back, the DDA reduced the conversion charges from ₹89,090 per square metre to ₹22,274 per square metre for 80 local markets falling in categories A-D categories (as per circle rates notified by the Delhi government).
“But even after reducing the rates, many traders didn’t turn up to pay the pending charges,” said a municipal corporation official didn’t wished to be named.
The traders at Defence Colony market have refused to pay the charges saying that their market has no residential component. “We have taken the matter in Supreme Court, claiming that our market was commercial from the beginning and thus traders will not pay any amount to the civic authority. We have no clue about the desealing of our shops so far,” said Jagdish Gupta, member of Defence Colony Market Association.