Millenium bus depot: Delhi HC pulls up DDA over delays

The Delhi High Court Monday pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for not giving up physical possession of sites to the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) to begin the process of relocating its Millennium bus depot built on the Yamuna river bed.

Justice V.K. Shali was informed by the state-run DTC that the allotment of land by the DDA was only on paper.

The DDA, the land-owing agency, has generally shown the area and location to the DTC without providing any demarcation of the land and physical possession, the court was told.

The court asked the DDA to hold a meeting with all stakeholders and come out with a solution and file a compliance report by Aug 28.

In a status report, the DTC said: "As all the necessary clearances for converting this land to a bus depot would take time, DTC has been given a paper, titled 'working permission', on the land in question without the demarcation, allotment or physical possession of the said site in question."

For shifting the depot, the DDA had earlier told the court that it had granted working permission to the DTC to use 20 acres of land in Rohini Phase 5, seven acres in Sarai Kale Khan and 42 acres at Karkari More in east Delhi.

The DTC status report also said: "The DTC will have to make an investment of about over Rs.100 crore at the sites to convert them into a working bus depot."

"Thus, without having any clearances or available land or at least being demarcated actual physical possession of the land with proper access, the work at the sites may even take time to begin," it added.

The DTC also said the land given in Rohini does not even have any access road.

The transport corporation had earlier told the court that it will vacate the millennium depot site by Oct 31.

The depot was built on about 50 acres of land at a cost of Rs.60 crore.

The then Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government had decided to shift the depot from the river bed accepting a demand made in a public interest litigation filed in the high court.