A portion of land at MalikPur Kohi in South Delhi’s Rangpuri village has taken a shape of a graveyard of dead animals. Interestingly, the land in question was acquired by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) from the farmers in the name of development. However, the land remained unused and was taken over by the DDA only on December 31, 2013, a day before the then Manmohan Singh Government’s policy on land acquisition was to be announced.
Notably, in 1991, 122 bigha land was acquired by the DDA from Rangpuri farmers for development, the authority did not start any activity to develop the acquired land. The land now resembles a big garbage dumping ground where dead animals are dumped.
When asked, a senior DDA official told The Pioneer, “DDA is maintaining this land. DDA has acquired this land from farmers for a project which is being finalised”.
Interestingly, the land was taken over by the land owning agency on December 31, 2013, a day before the implementation of Parliament Act on land accusation was to come into force. According to the new act, if the acquired land was left unused, the land owning agency was to return the same land to the original owners.
Delhi-based NGO named ‘Swachh Bharat’ has written a letter to the Ministry of Urban Development on this matter. “Our volunteer has found that vide a ward no 2/98-99/SW village Malikpur Kohi at Rangpuri a piece of land was acquired for planned development of Vasant Kunj, Phase-IV, DDA was supposed to look after the possession of land for the planned development as per the terms but no fencing or any boundary wall has built by DDA,” said HN Sharma, NGO worker.