Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi on Tuesday said she has written a letter to the MCD commissioner asking him to initiate the process of de-sealing shops that have been sealed since 2017.
According to a resolution passed in the MCD House on January 17, the de-sealing of shops was supposed to be carried out on January 19.
Speaking at a press conference at the Civic Centre here, Oberoi said the de-sealing work has been halted because Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti rejected the resolution passed by the MCD House for de-sealing of shops that were shut in the last five to six years for violating land use rules.
“The livelihood of thousands of traders and shop owners has been impacted because of the sealing action. The MCD House passed a resolution to de-seal these shops to give relief to these traders but it was rejected by the commissioner,” she said.
Delhi BJP Spokespersons Praveen Shankar Kapoor and Shikha Rai slammed the Delhi Mayor saying she is trying to mislead the local shopkeepers and spreading a false narrative. “The AAP is propagating that they are in favour to deseal their shops but the officials are not allowing desealing of the local shopping centre’s shops. The AAP leaders want to extort election fund from these shopkeepers and and therefore Mayor has prompted the MCD officials to move Court so that they could bargain with the traders,” Kapoor said.
Shops and restaurants were sealed in several markets of Delhi during a drive by the MCD against land use rules violations.
The sealing drive took place in Defence Colony, Rajinder Nagar, Greater Kailash, Green Park, Hauz Khas and South Extension following orders of a monitoring committee constituted by the Supreme Court.