Urban News

Hindustan Times 22.02.2010

“This will collapse if you try driving a small nail in it,” says Shobha Lamba (40), a resident of L1, Kalkaji DDA flats, pointing at the rear wall of a building in this south Delhi neighbourhood.

The wall in question is literally bursting with absorbed seepage.

Swollen on the surface, it’s a wonder how it supports one side of a two-storey building. “The ground floor owner wants the first-floor residents to fix this because it’s their toilet that’s seeping into the wall. It’s been a stalemate.”

If this building falls down crushing a few lives under it, there’s no one residents can blame, certainly not the DDA, which built the colony some 35 years ago.

In its carefully scripted legal deeds, the DDA washes its hands of any responsibility for the construction and upkeep of the buildings once the flats are allotted.

“I have never seen any DDA official visit our colony checking the health of the buildings in the past 35 years,” says Dr RP Sharma (61), president of Kalkaji DDA flats Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA). “Such is the construction quality that I’ve had to renovate every three-four years.”

The flats belong to individual owners, who are supposed to maintain the health of their flats. But who owns the staircases that join all the flats and are used by all? Who should repair the toilet shafts should they develop seepage?

There is no clear answer.

The legalese surrounding the allotment of the flats are such that the DDA is no better than fly by night ‘builders’ who leave flat owners to their fate after their part of the deal is over. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi is in charge of sanitation and upkeep of the parks and the areas.

But the building itself is nobody's baby. Neemo Dhar, DDA spokeswoman simply says, “Once the allottees take possession, the maintenance of the buildings is not our responsibility.”

Kalkaji is just one case in point.

Thousands of residents across DDA colonies, from Dilshad Garden, to Janakpuri and from Munirka to Gulabi Bagh in the North, have been battling this grey area for generations.

“Ground-floor owners don’t want to repair staircases as they don’t climb them,” said AK Oberoi (60), Janakpuri C4-E resident.

The DDA has a simple solution. It assumes residents will sort out “trivial issues” harmoniously. “Residents are to form RWAs, which take care of common-use areas,” Dhar says.

Clearly that has not worked.

The acrimony in among residents is evident in the fact that Kalkaji DDA flats have had a separate RWA of first floor residents since 1989. The repair, renovation or even reincarnation of the flats had depended on its individual owner’s financial expediency.

The DDA couldn’t care less.

Hindustan Times 22.02.2010

The ice-cream pushcarts have been moved from there and, from Monday, the car parking lot will also vanish from the stretch.

Delhi Police will no longer allow cars to be parked between Vijay Chowk and India Gate.

But even as the police seem to be on an overdrive to clear the place, New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) — the civic agency responsible for making parking arrangements in the area — is clueless about the development.

“We have not received any communication so far from Delhi Police,” said Anand Tiwari, spokesperson NDMC.

The civic agency will have to spruce up the area for parking and decide the charges and allot attendants.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg said the police are yet to talk to the NDMC.

“We are going to talk to the land owning agencies and see that the proper parking arrangements are in place. Meanwhile, we will start an education drive to tell people who park their vehicles at Rajpath about the new parking facility near the water channel,” said Garg. “The traffic police personnel will guide people to the new spot and once all the facilities are in place, we will start penalising people.”

He said they were working on a few key points at the new space to be used for parking, including proper lighting, placement of parking attendants and security of the area.

What to expect?

The traffic police will not allow any sort of vehicular parking on the stretch between Vijay Chowk and Rajpath. Some No Parking signs have been placed and the rest will be put up by Monday. Police claimed that this was being done to maintain the “sanctity” of the place.

“We are going to enforce no parking on this stretch from Monday. Traffic police personnel would be placed on the stretch,” said Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (Traffic).

The alternative

Senior traffic police officers said an alternative parking spot has been opened near the water channel at Rajpath.

Till now, the area was only used on Republic Day for parking. “The area would be opened for parking. Some work like providing adequate lighting is to be done but there should be no problem during the day,” said Garg.