Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken on Thursday met the Supreme Court Constituted Monitoring Committee and gave a detailed presentation quoting the law and the Master Plan 2021. He also stated that the on-going sealing drive in Delhi was illegal.
After meeting the Monitoring Committee, Maken said that he was hopeful that no sealing in the Special Areas and Village Abadi areas of Delhi will take place as the existing laws and MPD 2021 do not permit the same.
He also said that in local shopping centres additional FAR and basements should be allowed to be used for commercial purposes without paying any conversion charges because there is provision in the law for it.
Maken further said that the clause 8 of the principal notification of 2006 i.e. the ‘Mixed Use Regulations’ provided that the local bodies shall operate an ‘Escrow Account’ wherein the amount so collected from the conversion charges shall be deposited and be used for incurring expenditure on developing parking sites, augmentation of amenities, infrastructure in mixed use and commercial use streets. However, the local bodies have miserably failed to open an escrow account as mandated by the regulations.
Further, since the conversion amount so collected was never used by the corporation in augmenting the infrastructure in the concerned areas, this further discouraged the users/ owners from paying the conversion charges, he said.