The people of Delhi-NCR benefited due to the work of DDA but today it is synonymous with corruption that breeds incompetence

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) was created in 1957 by the Government of India as a role model for systematic urban development. There have been many milestone achievements by it since its creation especially after the civic administration was in turmoil and flooded with migrants from Pakistan occupying vacant lands all over the national capital in the wake of the partition of the country. It prepared its first Master Plan in 1962 so that a well-structured, planned and systematic development of the city can be ensured.

The DDA thereafter became a role model for autonomous bodies for the planned urban development in states and a large number of urban agencies or authorities were created all over the country, including in NOIDA, Gurgaon and Faridabad in the National Capital Region (NCR). It started several planned housing schemes as well as developed the land in a planned manner after acquiring it and played a key role in creating better civic amenities like electricity, water, sewage disposal and other infrastructural facilities in Delhi.

The people of Delhi and adjoining states in NCR benefited immensely due to the work of the DDA in developing several group housing projects. The population of Delhi is now more than two crore and is steadily increasing due to migration of people. It modified its master plan in 1982, 2007, and 2021. Now the DDA is on way to focus on a master plan for 2041.

However, today the DDA is synonymous with rampant corruption and misgovernance (except when a few honest officers were posted headed it) and it does not augur well for the national capital where such negative publicity tarnishes the name of the country abroad.

One of the negative fallouts of democratic governance in India during the last 75 years has been the increasing encroachments on government properties by people and organised mafia, especially on land resources, due to vote bank politics practiced by political parties and Delhi was no exception. Because of rampant diversion of forest lands, former prime minister Indira Gandhi enacted the Forest conservation Act, 1980. Politicians used to encourage encroachments on forest and other government lands and then nearer to the Assembly elections used to make provisions for regularization of encroachments.

On account of political patronage as much as 50 lakh people live in unauthorised colonies located in private or public land in Delhi; East Delhi has the maximum of such colonies. Most of the illegal colonies came up through agreement to sell through will or general power of attorney which not only was a criminal negligence both in the eyes of law as well as loss to the government on stamp duty and the sub-registrars were willing partners in this.

In 2011, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court declared the sale of property on general power of attorney illegal but it continued unabated nonetheless. In one case when a builder was found committing forgery in sale through the power of attorney, he did not correct the sale deed in where it was originally registered but in another.

This tendency killed the spirit for which the DDA was created and corruption and harassment of people became an integral regular feature in the DDA and no one would bother to take action against any such illegal gratification because most of the powerful politicians and bureaucrats became party to the systematic corruption. Without the connivance and laxity of government officials no illegal settlement can come up. One of the weakest points in government supervision is no penalty provision for deliberate negligence of duty in protecting such open resources like land from the encroachers.

In 2019, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in the Lok Sabha that corruption existed in the DDA and it could be checked only when the functioning of the organisation was fully digitised.

However, even after three years of his statement not much is being done by the DDA to arrest the corruption and provide relief to citizens. The technology vendors are harassed so much that they leave the job mid-way. Though the digitization of the land records has been completed, the top echelons of the DDA have shown absolutely no urgency in reigning in the corrupt babus and middlemen and through nexus want even the non-performers in a consortium to be paid if they can pull wires. In recent years, the Prime Minister’s UDAY Yojna announced with great fanfare to regularize around 1731 illegal colonies is the victim of corruption and negligence as well of poor perception of people.

More than four lakh registrations were done but so far a little more than a few thousands conveyance deeds have been registered for regularization of the property. The main reason for this is the corruption at the lower level in DDA which is ignored by senior officers deliberately for obvious reasons or insensitivity. Several people in Gagan Vihar and Preet Vihar area have told me that the DDA office will for PM Uday scheme mark on some flimsy ground the form as incomplete and then ask for two to three lakhs for each property. One Assistant Director Preet Vihar office Mr Pankaj Kumar was arrested by CBI in the month of February 2022 for demanding bribes and was caught red-handed when accepting Rs 30,000.

One of the reasons (according to one political activist) for the BJP’s loss in the recent MCD elections has been the tardy implementation of PM Uday scheme due to open corruption.

In the office of Lt Governor Delhi several letters by the Minister and public representatives on DDA corruption remained unattended because no one is serious about bringing transparency and being a long complicated land related complexity the officers are past masters in obfuscating the matters. It is a galore of confusion worse confounded for the common citizens.

The Urban Development Minister and Lt Governor Delhi must seriously review the working of the DDA and rid it of perpetual corruption, incompetence and highhandedness, otherwise the Master Plan 2041 and PM Uday scheme by the Government will keep people facing insurmountable hurdles. The people in power must wonder that only criticising the past rulers will not pay dividends any more.

The Aam Aadmi Party lost in Gujarat though it made a lot of noise about freebies and the BJP won even after 27 years of incumbency because the BJP did extremely well in solving the people’s problem and with a clean and transparent model of governance in Gujarat. The future is of performers now as the recent elections results have shown.

(The author is a former Director-General in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change)