The Hindu : Shutters come handy for DDA to extract bribe

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 22, 2003

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Other States - New Delhi

Shutters come handy for DDA to extract bribe

By Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI MAY 21. While shops everywhere have rolling shutters on their exterior, Delhi Development Authority continues to build and sell shops with iron shutters on the inside to facilitate taking of bribes by its staff as their shifting to the exterior technically amounts to "encroachment''.

The anomaly was highlighted by the secretary of Balprada, Madhusudan Sharma, when in communications to the Union Minister for Urban Development and former Vice-Chairman of DDA he had pointed out that the installation of rolling shutters was being used by corrupt DDA officials as a means of extracting bribes and harassing the allottees.

Himself an allottee of a shop in Sector 9 of Rohini, Mr Sharma said that while ideally the rolling shutters should be installed on the outside of the wall of any given shop, as that leaves space for installing glass windows on the interior, DDA was in some cases deliberately putting the shutters on the inside to harass the allottees.

Questioning why DDA adopted the unethical practice of installing the rolling shutters on the interior, Mr Sharma pointed out that this forced the shopowners to shift them out at their own extra expense. But while shifting them may be a normal practice for the shop-owners, the action provided DDA staff to raise objections on the grounds of "encroachment'' -- when practically there is none -- and demand bribe money for not initiating action.

``The going rate is anywhere between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 per shop,'' he said, adding that the execution of the conveyance deed also gets delayed in the process. And only those who pay bribe get the conveyance deed executed without any objection and delay.

As the gullible allottees are scared of frequent visits and loss of time in settling the matter officially, they prefer to settle the issue by paying bribes even for unreasonable objections.

But while this is how things usually go, pursuance of case at the highest levels also pays. Mr Sharma himself was able to secure a relief from the Deputy Director (Commercial Estate) by taking up the matter with the Minister and Vice-Chairman. In a landmark order (No. F.93(100)2000/CE/DDA/6087) the officer noted that the shifting of the rolling shutter from inner face of wall to outer face of wall will not amount to encroaching of any space/DDA land.

Thus the order has paved the way for similar changes all over Delhi as now shopkeepers can make the necessary changes quoting it as an example.

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