Too many cooks spoil the broth for areas marked special

NEW DELHI: For a decade it has borne the indignity of being tagged a ‘Special Area’ and yet remained among the neglected lots in the city. In fact, increased commercialisation has only worsened the load on civic infrastructure in this expanse that takes in the Walled City, its extension and Karol Bagh, and besides the grand categorisation, there is absolutely nothing special about these places.
MPD-21, notified on February 7, 2007, termed this demarcated portion a ‘Special Area’ and said it would have regulations differed from other city areas and that it would “be brought within the planning purview”. The erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi (the area now falls in the jurisdiction of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation) was supposed to prepare the Special Area Plan.
The BJP-led body did indeed prepare a plan, but it has ever been stuck in technicalities. Civic officials said the plan was sent to DDA for approval in 2011, but experts had objections, leading to conservation body Intach being asked to prepare guidelines for ‘Shahjahanabad’. The special by-laws were submitted to the north corporation in 2015.
“Under the Delhi Municipal Act, corporations don’t have the power to approve or notify the Local Area Plan. It is Delhi Development Authority that is mandated to notify such plans,” said Shamsher Singh, former chief town planner with MCD. Officials of land-owing agency, however, argue that the responsibility is the corporation’s.
With the plan stuck, the people are at the receiving end. “The infrastructure in the Special Area is very old and appears incapable of taking the increased load. There are severe problems like encroachment and illegal construction, but the corporation is doing little,” said Praveen, a Chandni Chowk trader. The ambitious plan to redevelop the Shajahanabad locality, conceived of in 2006, is nowhere near completion, with the wholesale markets yet to be shifted to the integrated freight complexes as planned.
Architect Abhimanyu Dalal, who prepared the original redevelopment plan, opted out last year after blaming the multiplicity of authorities and lack of will for the plan not taking off. Even the work of shifting utilities and cables to the underground ducts created between Fatehpuri Masjid and Red Fort has not been achieved.
With the non-implementation of the plan, development is at a standstill. Sanjay Bhargava, secretary of Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal, said, “The situation has gone from bad to worse. Government agencies are not serious about redeveloping the area, not even removing the illegal hawkers or the encrochaments on the pavements.”