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The ghost of sealings will be back to haunt Delhi in the New Year. With the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Special Provision) Act expiring on December 31, 2008, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi will resume sealing operations from January 1.
The matter was discussed at the MCD’s Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday. In a last-ditch effort to prevent the sealings, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led MCD decided to approach the Centre to renew the moratorium for another two years, till December 2010.
The Delhi Special Law-2007, passed by the Union Urban Development Ministry on March 31, 2007, had provided a temporary relief to all commercial units running out of residential areas. It had also brought respite for the unauthorised regularised colonies and farmhouses in the Capital.
In March 2007, when the court passed the sealing order, the Delhi government had taken a plea that they were in the process of regularising the unauthorised colonies and hence could not carry out sealings simultaneously. The government had also assured the court that the Delhi Master Plan 2021 would be ready by December 2008 and that the status of all commercial, residential, regularised and unauthorised colonies would be clear by then.
In these 21 months, the state government and the Centre were to complete the master plan and submit its status report in court. But with neither the plan ready yet, nor the report submitted, the MCD, bound by the court’s ruling, has no option but to resume the sealing operation after December 31.
Standing Committee chairman Vijendra Gupta, however, is not ready to toe the line. “The government is not ready with the master plan yet. It is the duty of the government to ensure that the people of Delhi do not face the threat of sealing again,” Gupta said at the Standing Committee meeting.
He insisted that the government should pass an ordinance that the MCD would not carry out any sealing in the city. “Even if it is contempt of court, we will not carry out the sealing drive,” said Gupta.
He said it was the time for the government to act. “It should give us a reply instead of sitting over the files,” said Gupta.
MCD Commissioner K S Mehra, however, contradicted Gupta’s statement. “We will have to go with the law. We will act on the orders of the court,” he said.
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The court should refuse to grant any permission to put sealings on hold. In fact, traders whose properties were sealed have been carrying out business either from hidden entrances or pavements outside the shops. Encroachments cleared by the MCD are back unashamedly. So are hazardouous and pollution causing industries like dyeing and motor workshops. MCD is ridden with corruption and should be dissolved as son as possible and the court-appointed commissioners put back on the job till an honest, reliable and efficient mechanism is put in place. It is futile to expect either Congress or BJP to save Delhi since they are only interested in saving theri vote banks.
This is a classic example of how democracy harms the national interest. First, you have unscrupulous traders who knowingly violate rules by renting out residential properties for commercial purposes on huge rentals. That a large majority of these deals are under declared or not declared at all and thus taxes evaded is another question. Then to top it, they demand that they be allowed to continue. Politicians are willing to go to the extent of contempt of court to play to the powerful trader vote bank. Who suffers? India and its development. Where is the nationalism of the BJP and the Congress now? Courts are India's only saviours. Left to the politicians, they will competitive outdo each other to sell off the country to every vote bank.
Sir, If the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Special Provision) Act will be expiring on December 31, 2008, and MCD wants to move the Centre to renew the law, is it not expected of MCD to make such a move well in advance so that the Centre could have taken up the issue in the just concluded parliamentary session? What is the great fun in talking about the renewal of the law after the parliamentary session? Does MCD expects that the Centre is going to convene the parliament session just for this item before December 31? If MCD has not acted in time, what was the opposition doing to get the MCD to act in time? Each time the citizen is presented a fait accompli. All that we witness is a mockery by these politicians.