Sunil Jain: Special rule for a special pool

RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS

It is, by now, clear the Ministry of Urban Development will not allow illegal buildings/structures to be demolished/sealed, more so since the political-bureaucratic class had a hand in allowing them to come up in the first place. That's why, in March 2006, the government first notified, in advance, a Mixed Land Use (MLU) chapter for Master Plan 2021. When this couldn't protect the "misusers" from the Court's ire, it appointed the Tejendra Khanna committee and notified its recommendations in September. Finally, on February 7, 2007, it notified a disputed Master Plan 2021 for Delhi, which attempted to legalise the illegalities (see Will Delhi's new master plan stand? 5/2/07).

But the Master Plan in itself is only a superstructure; it's not allowed to go into what can be done in the park in front of your house and things like that. That statutory detailing is left to 17 Zonal Development Plans for Delhi "" indeed, that's why, while notifying Master Plan 2021, the government said it would finalise all zonal plans within a year. A year for ordinary citizens to put up objections/suggestions and for the authorities to pass an order explaining how these had been incorporated or dismissed. After all, if the green area in front of your house is being converted into the Chief Minister's residence, you want to be able to protest; and if your protest is dismissed, you want to be able to appeal this order in a court. This process of soliciting dissent is called a Board of Enquiry process.

In other words, while Master Plan 2021 paves the way for, for instance, both Jagdish Store and Haldiram's to function from their outlets in the (currently) residential Lajpat Nagar in south Delhi, the actual zoning sanction awaits Zone D's zonal plan being notified, after the Board of Enquiry considers objections on the changes and deals with them "" the last date for filing objections/suggestions on the adjoining Zone F's plan, for instance, was sometime last week. In other words, it is possible that such outlets may not get through, if those objecting can show valid shortcomings in the proposal.

What's interesting, in this context, is that the government is bypassing the mandatory Board of Enquiry process for Zone D "" indeed, the zoning plan itself has not yet been made public "" but is going ahead and notifying land use changes for small plots of land in Master Plan 2021 itself! This is unheard of, but the logic probably is why wait for the Board of Enquiry as there's a possibility of opposition.

So, for instance, the land use of a plot of 0.8 hectares on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg in Delhi's Zone D was changed, on November 12 last year, from "government office" to "public and semi-public facilities" "" the Congress Party is supposed to be building offices here. The Lok Sabha, similarly, wants to build housing quarters in RK Puram "" so the land use of 2.2 hectares in Zone F was changed, on February 7, from "recreational (district park)" to "residential". Land for the Delhi High Court's expansion in Zone D's Bapa Nagar was also changed on the same day, from "residential" to "government office/courts". On October 12 last year, similarly, 1.7 hectares of "agriculture and water body" in the ecologically sensitive Yamuna river bed was converted into "public and semi-public facilities" to allow holding of exhibitions/fairs. In each case, the gazette notifications claim public objections were invited, but those objecting have no idea as to when the Boards of Enquiry were constituted or how their objections were dealt with. In the Appu Ghar case, where the amusement park was closed for the Supreme Court to builds its offices, a Board of Enquiry was held and objecters were called to give their objections "" but even here, when 100 objecters were called the first day, they were told they had a minute (60 seconds) each to present their case!

In some cases, such as the December 27, 2007, notification converting the arterial road in front of the PM's house into "residential" (official residence of the Prime Minister), it is likely all objections could be rejected on security grounds. But since the same doesn't apply in these other cases, the ministry obviously didn't want to take any chances.

The fact that we know all this today is not due to the government's desire to let people know what it is doing. These notices were put up on the internet only when a Right to Information (RTI) complaint was filed and the Central Information Commission ruled in favour of the complainant. The CIC website also tells us of a similar RTI complaint that reveals the DDA has yet to announce the names of officials appointed by it under Section 34-A of its DDA Act, which allows criminal prosecution of those involved in illegal construction/use! Which perhaps explains why no statutory enforcement got done in the last 50 years.

So, for the well-connected amongst you, don't bother shelling out crores for a plot of land in a tony colony "" just identify part of a park, or something, get the land use changed and the land allotted!