Date:17/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/17/stories/2006091712700400.htm

New Delhi

Notification on mixed use for DDA flats sought

Staff Reporter

Nominated DDA members meet Union Urban Development Minister

NEW DELHI: Nominated members of the Delhi Development Authority led by senior Congress leader and Nasirpur MLA Mahabal Mishra have urged Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy to also notify mixed land and commercial use in DDA flats and the nearly 250 rural villages that had been left out of the ambit of the latest notification issued by the Ministry and the Delhi Government.

At a meeting with Mr. Reddy on Friday evening, Mr. Mishra along with BJP MLA Mange Ram Garg and Municipal Councillor Virender Kasanasaid that the notification only plotted the residential houses that have been allowed for mixed land and commercial use but DDA flats including Janata flats and LIG flats were not covered under the present notification.

They said that DDA flats were located in all parts of Delhi and had thousands of shops running in them at present. People living in these flats were very poor and earned their livelihood by running small shops from their houses. These flats were also categorised in D to G colonies and there was no objection from the residents to their status being changed.

Therefore they urged Mr. Reddy to allow use of such flats for mixed land and commercial use.

Referring to the issue of villages, Mr. Mishra said as per the notification only urban villages were covered under the mixed land regime and about 250 villages in rural Delhi had been left out for no reason.

People living in these villages surrounding the Capital were running their small shops for decades as they had no other source of income, he said. As there was little difference between "urban" villages and "rural villages", all villages or rural areas should be treated at par without indulging in any kind of discrimination.

Mr. Mishra said a large number of roads had been declared commercial and it was requested that commercial activities including those of non-permissible use be allowed on all such roads.

Further, the two stated that as per the notification, only pre-nursery schools had been allowed on the ground floor in land use but no such relaxation had been allowed in DDA flats - something that needed to be re-looked and taken note of.

Mr. Mishra said there were around two lakh professionals in the category of doctors, advocates, architects and chartered accountants in the Capital operating from their residential premises or basements of their buildings.

"Such activity should not be banned in basements and professionals should be allowed to operate even from those buildings where they do not reside," he added.

Mr. Mishra said Mr. Reddy had promised to look into the entire problem sympathetically and carry out the necessary corrections in the notification wherever it was required.