New Delhi: Even as Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) continues with its demolition overdrive, more skeletons are tumbling out of its closet with each passing day.
After CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team blew the lid off two cases of corruption and negligence, another case of illegal encroachment on reserved areas has come into light.
High-profile illegal constructions are continuing with impunity in South Delhi's Vasant Kunj and it doesn't seem to figure on the MCD's demolition radar.
This time on the chart are the buildings constructed on the city’s reserved forests and Ridge areas.
"The buildings of the CRPF, two management institutes, the School of Planning and Architecture and the National Book Trust are on lands which are ridge, forest and water-protected. Also figuring in this list is the Energy Research Institute," petitioner Dewan Singh said.
The Vasant Kunj Ridge is a forest area, originally owned by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Indian Army.
Two years ago, DDA auctioned-off a part of it and allowed construction of several malls and institutes on the area in August 2005.
But Citizens’ Groups appealed to the Supreme Court requesting a stay on the constructions.
"For nearly one year construction has been going on. They are yet to get clearance for this and how is DDA allowing this to happen?" Singh asked.
But Planning Commissioner A K Jain, refutes the charges. "We go according to the Master Plan of Delhi. We don’t go by what the Forest Department says," he said.
The commercial development of the Ridge has been a contentious issue for some years now.
While the Geological Survey of India called it a ‘reserved forest,’ the Supreme Court in 1997 allowed some development of the area, provided the developers obtained environmental clearances.
"The Centrally Empowered Committee (CEC), Environmental Pollution Control Authority and Central Ground Water Board have called this protected land saying no construction can take place here," Vikram Soni from Citizens for Preservation of Quarries and Lakes said.
When CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team confronted the DDA with zonal maps of the area, they dismissed the documents as fake.
But the maps that the officials of DDA showed CNN-IBN seemed doctored.
In April 2004, a CEC appointed by the Supreme Court recommended that construction in the area be stopped immediately but to no avail.
Since then, in a blatant violation of all MCD bylaws, the constructions have been going on in the reserved forest areas, endangering the-little green cover the Capital can boast of.
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