Mehrauli aap govt asks dda to stop demolition

Mehrauli aap govt asks dda to stop demolition

Delhi government orders fresh demarcation exercise in the area; BJP says ‘wrong’ report has resulted in loss of homes for several families; DDA says 1,200 sq m of its land reclaimed, exercise to continue.

A day after the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) conducted a demolition drive in Mehrauli, the AAP government on Saturday said the demarcation of the particular area — an exercise carried out by its own Revenue Department — has ‘fallacies’ and the survey report has now been struck down.

The government also ordered a fresh demarcation exercise in the area and issued a statement urging the DDA to stop the demolition drive, which continued for a second day on Saturday.

The AAP government’s latest move invited criticism from the BJP, which launched a fresh attack on the former. ‘People of Delhi are shocked to see the callousness of the Arvind Kejriwal government in giving the DDA a wrong survey report because of which dozens of families have lost their homes and more are under the hammer,’ said Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor.

The chairman of the DDA Is Central government-appointed Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena, with whom the AAP government is already locked in a power tussle.

Earlier in the day, the DDA said close to 1,200 square metres of its land was reclaimed from ‘encroachers’ on Friday and the exercise will continue.

‘The Delhi High Court has, on many occasions, directed the government authorities to secure, protect and preserve the area falling under the Mehrauli Archaeological Park by removing illegal encroachments. The department is taking the action to remove the unauthorised, illegal encroachment from government land and also to secure the archaeological park from encroachment,’ the DDA said in an official statement.

According to the DDA, the Delhi government was also on board in the run-up to ‘the long-pending, court-mandated exercise’. A demarcation exercise — to identify the extent of illegal encroachments for the purpose of removing them — was carried out by the Revenue Department in the presence of the DDA and Waqf Board representatives, the statement read.

Fresh demarcation

However, Revenue Minister Kailash Gahlot said officials of his department, in a meeting on Friday, admitted that occupants were not served any notice before the demarcation of the Khasra numbers [land parcel identification numbers] in question. ‘Obviously, there was no participation by the occupants at the time of conducting the demarcation,’ he said. The District Magistrate (South) has been asked to inform the DDA about this order and a fresh demarcation exercise shall again be carried out, he added.

When asked, a senior DDA official said the urban body has not received any communication in this connection. ‘Until then, the encroachment removal exercise will continue as planned,’ the official added.