Marble units, other shops sealed in Rajouri Garden
DRIVE CONTINUES 54 commercial establishments sealed; shop owners cry foul, say municipal corporation’s building department did not hear their arguments
NEWDELHI: The North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations on Thursday sealed at least 54 commercial establishments in Rajouri Garden — a majority of them being marble shops.
The sealing drive started around 4 pm on the direction of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee and shops were targeted for misuse and massive encroachment (up to 50 feet) on public land.
All the three members of the monitoring committee — KJ Rao, Bhure Lal and Maj General (Retd.) Som Jhingan — were present during the sealing.
“We visited the place earlier and found shop owners encroaching upon one-fourth of the road (right of way) which is 210 feet wide. This was resulting in chaos in the area,” said a monitoring committee member not wished to be named.
“Even the service lanes are in a mess; the sealing drive will continue in adjoining areas as well. These shops can be de-sealed only when the unauthorised portions are demolished and the shop owner pays 10 times of the conversion charges as penalty for misusing the public land,” the monitoring committee member said.
Thursday’s drive was carried by two civic agencies because one side of road falls in the juris- diction of North and other in South Corporation
The shop owners condemned the sealing action.
“It is shocking that despite being a commercial road and most of the traders having paid parking and conversion charges, the MCD’S building department carried out sealing without hearing the arguments of the shop owners. We don’t know what to do now,” said Sumit Agarwal, a marble dealer whose shop was sealed on Thursday.
The Confederation of All India Traders, umbrella body for 2,500 traders organisation in city, said they will raise the issue with the Union urban development and home ministers.
“We highly condemn such an attitude of MCD which has no regard even for the stipulations of Master Plan and MCD Act, 1957. The traders are being treated like terrorists,” said Praveen Khandelwal, general secretary of CAIT.