News: Residential areas in Delhi losing identity on rise in commercial activities-21.01.2018

Residential areas in Delhi losing identity on rise in commercial activities

NEW DELHI: The stretch between Veer Savarkar Margand Feroze Gandhi Road in Lajpat Nagar II is waiting for a notification that will change its status to either mixed land use or commercial, depending on the extent of commercialisation. Not everybody is waiting for a change in status though, certainly not the original residents. They are fed up with the chaos that has enveloped them with commercial establishments mushrooming here over the past few years. A constant stream of shoppers and parking are a huge menace.

It was in September 2006 that 2,183 roads were notified for commercial activities with stretches that had over 50% such activity being notified under mixed land use and those with over 70% being given the commercial land use tag. Corporation officials now cite that criteria to push for more such roads to be notified. The residents allege that they are the ones who have not checked commercial activities as they were supposed to do and that the entire city was under threat.

“Due to lack of monitoring, more and more areas in the capital are turning into a hub for commercial activities. If the local bodies continue to notify more and more roads for commercial and mixed land use, then residential areas will take a major hit,” says a worried resident, Praveen Gupta. However, some people point out that this is also the result of faulty planning. There is not enough legitimate commercial space available.



Sunando Bose, a resident of Chittaranjan Park, however, feels that the civic officials are in cahoots with unscrupulous traders who are hell-bent on violating the master plan and turn the entire city into an urban hell. He says corruption is rampant and you can open a shop in a non-conforming area with ease if you can grease the right palms. “Our colony has four big markets and yet business establishments are opening everywhere,” he says. “It’s the same in GK-I and II. It is relentless.”

BJP and AAP are now at loggerheads over notifiying of 351 more roads. The corporations claim they had conducted a survey in 2007 and had sent the file for notifying these stretches across the capital. The issue has resurfaced amid the on-going sealing drive initiated by the monitoring committee appointed by the Supreme Court albeit only on the conversion and use charge issue. “The government had to approve the notification process within 90 days of the file being sent. It is still pending with them,” said a senior official of south corporation.

“The monitoring committee is carrying out the sealing drive for misuse of land and non-payment of conversion charges. However, if these stretches are not notified, then even these will come under the hammer,” says Kamaljeet Sehrawat, south corporation mayor.

The north corporation mayor, Preety Agarwal, had met the Delhi urban development minister, Satyender Jain, last week on the same issue. Out of the 351 stretches, 176 fall under the jurisdiction of the north corporation, 169 under the south corporation and six under the east corporation.