Delhi: Master Plan
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Master Plan: 2021
Poor implementation
From: Ambika Pandit & Mayank Manohar, MASTER PLAN UNRAVELS AS VIOLATIONS BECOME NORM, November 2, 2017: The Times of India
From: Ambika Pandit & Mayank Manohar, MASTER PLAN UNRAVELS AS VIOLATIONS BECOME NORM, November 2, 2017: The Times of India
DDA is preparing the next master plan for city but the process can turn futile if it refuses to learn from the way the previous one was implemented
A bungalow with a manicured garden and a wide driveway in C Block of G r e a t e r Kailash-I was built in the 1960s and promised its owner a quality life in a dream colony . Today, Renu Khosla, the daughter of the man who constructed the house, talks of a shattered dream as she surveys the area near her home -a health facility, offices and others that all show signs of being commercial sites. “Yes, it is indeed a beautiful house,“ Khosla agrees, “but with all this commercial activity, you cannot even open the door and sit in privacy in the lawn.“.
Khosla remembers the sealing drive undertaken by the municipal corporation in 2006 to prevent use of residential properties in upscale colonies for commercial activities. She points at a building nearby where the locked gate still bears the official seal. “What is the point of sealing houses if you cannot prevent commercialisation of residential spaces?“ asks Khosla. Skirting her house is Hansraj Gupta Marg, on which are located plush showrooms and boutiques, spas and healthcare centres, branded ice cream parlours and confectionary shops. The spirit of Master Plan for Delhi 2021 is clearly dead on this stretch, as elsewhere in the expanse of the capital.
In September 2006, the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi cracked down on commercial establishments operating in residential areas, particularly in colonies classified as A and B that constituted the high-land tax category. Greater KailashI, a B colony, was identified as one such hotspot. Here, even the Supreme Court had directed the cessation of commercial activities.
The sealing led to panic among traders across the capital until Delhi Development Authority seemed to come to their rescue with MPD21 that laid the ground for mixed-use (commercial and residential) areas. Under the plan, activities such as nursing homes and pre-primary schools would be allowed in residential colonies provided certain road width norms were met. Residents of Greater Kailash I were successful in preventing Hansraj Gupta Marg from being included in the list of commerc i a l streets, but a decade later, as DDA begins work on the succeeding MPD41 to oversee Delhi's development till 2041, the stretch remains a picture of unchecked commercialisation, chaotic parking and paralysed traffic set-up.
This road is emblematic of how MPD21 failed to deliver. The cutoff dates and road-width norms for allowing commercial centres in residential areas were never met. The rules said that only establishments related to health, like weight loss spas, Ayurvedic treatment centres and salons offering aesthetic medical services that existed on on February 7, 2007 could continue operations. New banks, fitness centres or NGO offices would no longer be permitted to operate from A and B colonies.
SDMC officials, however, said that there is no controversy over the number of commercial establishments permitted in A or B colonies.“The Master Plan does not place such a limit, but we have ensured that no new centres have come up in the past few years. There is a need for a limiting provision in the MPD,“ a senior SDMC official said. “In a colony other than A or B, a house can have up to four shops occupying not more than 20 sq metres.“
MPD21 also notified 2,183 streets for commercial and mixed use and detailed what sort of activities could be carried out on such stretched and the norms applicable.Monitoring of compliance and conversion charges held the key to legalisation, but the corporation found itself in knots about these. After the utter failure in ensuring compliance, the civic body chose first to blame the traders for not being forthcoming on the nature of their commercial activities and then to workforce problems for the poor implementation. As far back as 1993, the original owners of buildings on Hansraj Gupta Marg had written to PV Jayakrishnan, the MCD commissioner then, listing 15 residential complexes being used for commercial purposes. “It seems that money has become the law of the land,“ the members of GKI residents' association had testily told the civic head. Tor day, Surendra Kumar, a retired government officer, stands perplexed at his 60-yearold house across the M old house across the M Block market and looks at the bus stop where no bus stops and the only shops around are those selling wares that are nothing like the permitted “daily needs“.
