The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has alleged that Congress and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) both are involved in the “conspiracy” to cut down thousand of trees in Delhi as part of redevelopment project.
“The whole project of redevelopment was planned by Congress Government at Centre which is now only being repackaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This project was introduced by the Congress Central Government by the then Minister of State in the Ministry of Urban Development Ajay Maken,” said AAP chief spokesperson, Saurabh Bharadwaj.
According to AAP, it was “only after a long wait that finally Congress and BJP have opened up about the Central Governments redevelopment projects by National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) and its harmful effects on environment”.
He said that the Central Government is allegedly working on a project against which Aman lekhi , husband of BJP MP Meenakshi lekhi had filed a petition in the High Court in 2014 “considering it to be extremely harmful for Delhi's environment”.
Bharadwaj informed that another petition was filed by Rajiv Suri in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) which also allegedly mentioned the drawbacks of the project. “But the NGT straight away called off both the petitions by saying that the environment clearance was approved in 2012 and the limitation period for taking any legal scrutiny has expired,” he said.
“In the year 2006 the redevelopment of Netaji Nagar and Moti Bagh was planned by the MoUD which was the Ministry of Ajay Maken then and today Congress president Rahul Gandhi has stood against the same redevelopment plan in Delhi,” said Bharadwaj.
“Any master plan and zonal development plan modifications can be executed by Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The Central Government claimed that the work of redevelopment is for the residential use only but the brochures simply prove that the redevelopment is done for commercial propose. The residential land in Delhi is being used for commercial purpose,” he said.
Bharadwaj said that Urban Development Minister Hardeep Puri and the Central government must answer that when was the land use of residential land converted into commercialIJ