Delhi sealing drive: Why BJP is shirking its responsibility in fixing the mess
On March 8, when the sealing of almost 700 shops was underway in Delhi’s Amar Colony Market, the Delhi Police mercilessly roughed up traders for holding peaceful protests.
Yesterday (March 13), Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, in a show of political statesmanship, convened an all-party meeting by inviting the Congress and the BJP to collectively discuss and deliberate possible relief measures for traders.
However, the BJP deemed it below its dignity to attend the meeting while its Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari was on a "study tour" in Mauritius. This was despite the fact that the MCD (which is executing the sealing drive) and the DDA (which is responsible for Delhi’s urban planning) are both under the BJP making it the primary stakeholder.
When after much dilly-dally and deployment of dilatory tactics, the BJP-led central government made amendments to the Master Plan of Delhi 2021 (MPD-2021) with the "intention" of providing relief to traders, the Supreme Court termed these changes as contempt of court and branded, rather ignominiously, the DDA as "Delhi Destruction Authority".
As Delhi’s trade sector, which employs 30 per cent of Delhi’s workforce and is the single largest contributor to Delhi’s GDP, unravels, the BJP is still stuck in the quagmire of sectarian politics. The BJP-appointed and overweening lieutenant governor of Delhi and the Union minister for housing and urban affairs tried to shift the blame to the AAP while making a statement to the effect that the current sealing drive in Delhi was justified and would continue.
This sort of behaviour has become quite typical of the BJP which resolutely refuses to drive the vehicle that has been entrusted to it only to wrongly park it at Kejriwal's doorstep and then asks everyone to challan him.
Allow me to explain.
The Master Plan of Delhi 2021 (MPD-2021) - a blueprint for Delhi’s urban agglomeration growth - was drafted by the DDA in 2007, according to which the building control norms prescribed therein were supposed to be executed at the ground level by the MCD. The DDA operates under the direct jurisdiction of the central government while the MCD operates under the party which wins the periodically held municipal elections.
For the past 15 years or so, the DDA and the MCD have been akin to dramatis personae in a game of musical chairs where the BJP and the Congress have been in-charge of these authorities depending upon who is in power at the Centre, or who won the municipal elections. Presently, both the MCD and the DDA are under the BJP.
MPD-2021 was problematic right from the stage of inception to execution at the ground level. And this was complemented by the lassitude and apathy of both the BJP and the Congress. Here is how:
Inaction on local area plans (LAPs)
Delhi is a burgeoning city of more than 20 million people. Urban planning rules mandate that a master plan should be a macro-level city-wide template which delineates the major bullet points of growth that a city like Delhi needs to adhere to.
In Delhi, master plans have a lock-in period of 20 years. The real meat of urban planning is the local area plan which lays out at the micro-level an involved blueprint for a locality’s growth all the while keeping in mind the practical ground realities. This is meant to counter the side-effects of a one-size-fits-all approach.
MPD 2021, under Section 17, directed the DDA and the MCD to create local area plans for all localities in Delhi in active consultation with the concerned stakeholders - local residents and traders.
In 2008, a lacklustre process was initiated by the DDA (under the Congress at Centre) and MCD (under the BJP) to create 33 LAPs as a pilot project which was soon consigned to the shelf of obsolescence on account of the alleged financial bankruptcy of the BJP-run MCD and irreconcilable political differences between the Congress and BJP - clearly a spanner in the welfare of the people.
In 2018, after the present sealing drive in Delhi left traders reeling, the DDA has announced its plan to enforce LAPs in MPD-2041. This is an effective setback of 20 years to the planned growth of Delhi, as what should have been done by 2021 will now be done only by 2041.
Outdated building control norms
MPD 2021 mandates the floor area ratio (FAR) for all establishments (residential, commercial, and industrial). FAR is, in layman’s terminology, the measure of vertical growth. The higher the FAR, the more floors, vertically, can be used for operation. Any violation of the said FAR norms leads to sealing of the establishment.
Over the past decade, however, the FAR for commercial establishments in Delhi has not increased. Despite repeated requests by trader associations, the DDA has been somnambulant in increasing the FAR from 180sqm to 350sqm on paper while the increase naturally happened at the ground level across Delhi in response to the increasing needs and rapid growth of the city. Then is it fair to penalise traders for something that should have been amended long ago had DDA taken cognisance earlier?
Irregular surveys by MCD
Section 15 of the MPD 2021 directs the MCD to conduct periodic localised surveys of Delhi to identify trade establishments which are running in residential areas, and to convert them into mixed-land use, that is to allow those establishments to operate from residential areas, after collecting a conversion fee mandated by the rule of law.
However, with scant disregard for this convention, the MCD has conducted only sporadic surveys over the past decade. This insipid administration not only allowed conversion charges to compound for years to an end, causing deep financial stress to the traders, but also allowed trade establishments to mushroom haphazardly across Delhi, dealing a body-blow to planned urban growth of Delhi.
BJP indulging in petty politicking
Recently, the BJP fallaciously alleged that the AAP-led Delhi government was responsible for the sealing woes as it had not yet notified the survey, sent to it by the BJP-led MCD, of 351 roads fit for mixed-land use operation. Three facts which demolish the BJP’s arguments are: first, the current sealing drive is happening at the 2,000-odd roads which were notified in 2006 and not the said 351 roads.
Second, at a hearing before the Delhi Assembly’s special committee on MCD, the mayors of MCD confessed that the survey of 351 roads that they had sent to the Delhi government was conducted in 2007, and as a result, they could not vouch for its credibility on account of it being very old and that their allegation of sealing being concentrated on 351 roads was largely without merit.
Third, after the MCD sent it an updated survey, the Delhi government promptly notified these 351 roads for mixed-land use operation.
This admission by the BJP, on record, is proof enough of the blatant and petty politicking that the party has indulged in at the cost of Delhi’s welfare. It is clear that it took its traditional voter base, the traders, especially those belonging to the Vaishya community, for granted as well as for a ride. Come election time, one shudders to think the political consequences for the BJP.
The urgent need of the hour for the BJP is to stop acting like the 12th man in a sordid game of cricket, and to rise above blame-shifting by resolving the current crisis in Delhi through a central notification, which places moratorium on all notices issued by the urban local bodies and the DDA, to restore status quo.