PICTURE SPEAK

The big news is that DDA's monopoly over land has been broken. "Such a monopolistic situation is not good and I'm not going to let the DDA construct a single unit out of the 2.4 million units that would be required by 2021," says Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken.

WATER Delhi's requirement of drinking water is 200 mgd per day and even after the Sonia Vihar plant becoming operational, it is insufficient. Three new dams-Kishau and Lakhwar in Uttarakhand and Renuka in Himachal-may help, but could take over 10 years to deliver. POWER The current requirement is 5,000 MW per day as against availability of 3,500 MW. Expected to increase to 10,000 MW. Delhi has signed agreement with Chhattisgarh to produce 1,250 MW, which is grossly insufficient. Will have to cut losses and theft, which amount to 30 per cent. ROADS & BRIDGES The present number of 60 flyovers is not sufficient to meet the ground traffic needs. At least half a dozen more bridges needed across Yamuna. PARKING The current parking space in the city can accommodate only 70 per cent of the vehicles. Private parking lots are unlikely to ease the problem as the present 46 lakh vehicles will double in a decade.

Politicians who worried about the impact of the Supreme Court directed demolition and sealing of large parts of Delhi on impending municipal elections are happy and so is the builder lobby. The MPD in a way reverses whatever had been achieved by the way of decongestion of residential areas. It overrides the sealing drive by declaring mixed use of premises on more than 2,000 roads in the city. While residences along all arterial roads can now be used for commercial purposes, the RWAs will have a greater say in declaring commercial use inside colonies.

The builders, of course, can't hide their glee. The MPD opens up nearly 27,000 hectare of land for development. The city's population has grown from less than 50 lakh in the mid 80s to over 1.5 crore today, mainly due to the influx from neighbouring states. The space crunch and the impact of sealing has driven the Government into the arms of the builder lobby. "Floor Area Ratio (far) had been artificially suppressed in the past," says Maken. With 400 per cent far coverage now allowed, four storey buildings measuring 15 metre may soon become the norm. Those who own more than 1,000 sq m are allowed to build private car parks and those with more than 4,000 sq m can go up to 16 floors provided they take care of few essentials like underground parking, sewage treatment and solar panels. This opens up great swathes of land in prime shopping areas around Nehru Place and Okhla as also in south, east and west Delhi. The MPD estimates that the zonal plans will be ready in 18 months and that will open the construction floodgates. "Together with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) plans we may have several million new housing units," says KT Ravindran, head of School of Planning and Architecture.

"The DDA's monopolistic hold over planning and construction of housing was stifling growth." AJAY MAKEN, MOS, URBAN DEVELOPMENT MINISTRY

The MPD is silent on that but claims credit for regularisation of 1,500 unauthorised colonies which have largely been built on public land as a result of the DDA's somnolence and incompetence. Former Delhi chief secretary Omesh Saigal feels this is one place where the imprint of the land mafia is most visible. "Even after aerial surveys in 1998 and 2002 we could not locate more than 1,100 colonies, so it is anybody's guess as to who would benefit from the 400 colonies on paper," he says.

The big builder lobby is keeping extremely quiet at the moment. The preferred stance is that they have not yet read the MPD and would rather comment after studying it. The murmurs about the politician-builder nexus is as much a reality as unlcleared garbage heaps in colonies.

Going vertical frees the land for community use such as public parks, but only strict implementation can move our cities in the right direction. There is an attempt in the MPD to balance housing for all sections of the society, but whether that vision succeeds remains to be seen. Otherwise the Supreme Court will be left with a bigger mess to clean in 2021.

-with Nandini Vaish

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