Provide healthy & safe environment to Dwarka residents: HC to SDMC, DDA

The Delhi High Court has directed the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and DDA to provide a "healthy and safe environment" to residents of Dwarka sub-city.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar ordered the SDMC and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to properly maintain roads, footpaths and parking spaces in the sub-city, a relatively newer addition to the national capital housing high-rise apartment blocks and several offices and hotels.

It also directed them to make every endeavour to implement a system for solid waste management in Dwarka "in accordance with law, rules, regulations and government policy applicable to the facts of the case".

"We hereby direct the respondents 1 (SDMC) and 2 (DDA) to provide healthy and safe environment to the residents of Dwarka, New Delhi. Roads, footpaths and parking shall be properly maintained by the respondents 1 and 2," the bench said while disposing off a PIL filed in 2014 by a then law student, Ebbani Aggarwal, on the issue of lack of cleanliness and poor condition of roads as well as pavements in the sub-city.

The court passed the order after noting that several steps have already been initiated by the civic bodies and DDA to address the grievances raised by Aggarwal, who resides in Dwarka.