NEW DELHI: The plan for the parking under construction at Subhash Maidan near Red Fort - which partly caved in on Saturday - was not sent to Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) for clearance, according to chairman DUAC, K T Ravindran.

According to DUAC, since the parking lies within a heritage precinct, such clearance from the commission is mandatory. In fact there should be no underground digging in the area. ''Such digging should not be allowed till the sub-surface archaeology has been investigated,'' said Ravindran.

According to sources, traffic police and ASI had also objected to the construction of this three-level underground parking facility. ASI had expressed reservations as the parking facility was being constructed near the world heritage site - Red Fort as well as the Sunehari Masjid.

Work of constructing the parking lot at Subhash Maidan started last year after ASI refused to give clearance for construction of a parking facility at Shaheed Park on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg. The reason for ASI's denial of clearance was that this parking lot would have fallen within the prohibited area of two centrally protected monuments - Khooni Darwaza and Ferozshah Kotla ruins.

The Subhash Maidan parking lot which is being constructed at a cost of Rs 52 crore will accommodate 800 cars and is now expected to be ready by May 2011. Said an MCD official: ''The parking lot is supposed be a solution to the parking mess in Chandni Chowk. The work would have been completed much earlier but the incessant rains led to slowing down of work.'' The ground was supposed to have been restored by now, according to earlier deadlines given by MCD.

In a similar incident, a wall collapse near an under-construction MCD parking site in Munirka was reported in August. Indiscriminate dumping of loose earth from the parking lot had led to collapse of a boundary wall around DDA flats. Five cars and three scooters were damaged.

According to MCD officials, the weight of the loose earth being dumped in the rock garden next to the parking lot had led to the wall collapse. Meanwhile, despite years of planning, MCD has not been able to complete work of constructing even one multi-level parking site in the city. The Kamla Nagar automated multi-level parking site, which was inaugurated by the LG about three years back, is not likely to be completed any time soon.

Hindustan Times  29.10.2010

Under fire for granting an occupation certificate to Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society at Colaba, which has been accused of building and environmental violations, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials tried to deflect the blame. It was the state government, they claimed, that instructed them to issue the certificate.

Earlier, MMRDA had claimed that the certificate was granted only after ensuring that all permissions, including that of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, were in place.

Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had written to the state, asking it to explain how the building was allowed in the Coastal Regulation Zone without environmental clearances.

A senior MMRDA official, requesting anonymity since he is not authorised to speak to the media, said: “We had a limited role in granting and approving development permissions. Since the state Urban Development Department wrote to us saying that the structure had all the sanctions, we found no reason to withhold the certificate.”

MMRDA is the planning authority for Backbay, which is why its approval was important. In 2003, MMRDA issued a commencement certificate to the society.

“Now that the building is ready, there was no reason for us to override the state on this,” said the official.