Delhi sealing drive protest: Why did Congress, BJP and AAP wait for crisis to strike?
The crisis is a result of poor planning and inaction by all the parties that have governed Delhi.
Major markets in Delhi remained closed on Wednesday as traders and shopkeepers gathered at Ramlila Maidan to stage a protest against the ongoing sealing drive in the city.
Since December last year, municipal authorities in Delhi have been shutting down commercial establishments for a range of irregularities, such as encroachment, illegal construction and failure to pay conversion charges, which is a fee levied to get residential land categorised as commercial.
Traders have called this unfair, saying they are bearing the brunt of the government’s flawed policies, and that shutting of shops is robbing them of livelihood.
Behind the mess lies years of neglect of pressing concerns by all the parties – BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party – that have governed Delhi in various capacities.
The issue, like a lot else in Delhi, has become more complicated because of the division of power between the state government and the Centre. Chief minister Arrvind Kejriwal has, in fact, written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, asking to meet them and help resolve the issue.
Lakhs of shops to be shut in protest of sealing in #DelhiRead @ANI story | https://t.co/45XDEG6fTA pic.twitter.com/pdKwX2jmHv
— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) March 27, 2018
All India Diamond Trader Association Support CTI for Delhi Band Call and Ramlila Ground Rally to stop Sealing. For ChairmanAIDTA pic.twitter.com/aDZDD6Q557
— AIDTA (@aidtaindia) March 28, 2018
“The reason behind sealing is anomalies in the law. It is the responsibility of the Central government to remove these anomalies. The traders are on the verge of starvation and each shop is means of livelihood for many people. If all of them are rendered unemployed (due to sealing) then it may impact law and order situation,” he has said.
Traders, meanwhile, have gone as far as to threaten to “move out of Delhi”. Praveen Khandelwal, general secretary, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has said: “The trade and economy of Delhi are badly affected and in the last three months; business has dropped 40 per cent. If this continues, traders will be left with no option but to shift their business to neighbouring cities, which will cause huge revenue loss to the Delhi Government.”
Root cause
The root of the problem is in the poor planning and execution of the Delhi Master Plan 2021. The master plan is the document that decides how Delhi should be developed, and is prepared for the next 20 years. The blueprint created in 1982 was revised and notified in 2007 as Master Plan 2021.
In this period, the population of Delhi, thanks to the large-scale migration the capital witnesses, had grown exponentially, and shops and commercial establishments had mushroomed across the city. In 2005-06, the Delhi High Court ordered a sealing drive against shops that flouted the law, and the ensuing protests saw four people being killed.
The government then brought in the trader-friendly 2007 amendments, which included bringing down the conversion charges and allowing buildings to grow taller.
The Supreme Court, however, stuck down the amendments in view of their potential harmful effects on the environment, and the lack of supporting infrastructure – traffic, parking, civic amenities et al.
The current sealing drive, too, has been ordered by the Supreme Court.
The failure on part of Delhi’s governing bodies is that they did not come up with policies with the holistic development of the city in mind, and did not stop the shops flouting rules from coming up.
Now, the three parties, the Congress, BJP and AAP, are blaming one another for the crisis, as shop after shop is shut down and traders and shop employees lose jobs.
Allegations have even been made that governments allowed this to happen because they want small traders out of the way for malls to come in.
The sealing drive is yet another example of how authorities ignore town planning, allowing shops to break rules as long as revenue in the form of taxes trickles in, and wake up only when crisis strikes - and the Supreme Court intervenes.
The state and the Centre need to get together and find a way out of the problem in a way that harms neither Delhi’s civic amenities nor traders’ interests. They have had time enough to think of solutions.