The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Allot vacant flats'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 07, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Allot vacant flats'

Staff Reporter

"Hundreds of flats built by DDA all over Delhi have been lying vacant for the past 30 years or more... .''

NEW DELHI: Even as people continue to face an acute shortage of housing in the Capital and are forced to look for abodes in the satellite townships, the Delhi Development Authority has kept hundreds of flats under lock and key for years now. With some of these flats having been vacant for the past 30 years or more, a Member of the Authority, Councillor Virender Kasana, has demanded urgent steps to undo this anomaly so that people in need of housing are able to live in them.

Stating that whenever the construction of any colony takes place, DDA keeps eight to 10 flats with itself as site offices and officers for its area engineers, Mr. Kasana said even when the allotment of the flats takes place, these are retained by the Authority for its own use.

Claiming that there were a number of such flats in areas like Vasant Kunj, Alaknanda and Sarita Vihar, he said even in the LIG colony at Kalkaji, where he resides, some flats have been lying locked since the time the allotments were made in the colony way back in 1976. Stating that for some very strange reason DDA chooses to keep these flats vacant and does not put them up for auction or allotment, the Congress leader demanded that the DDA Vice-Chairman, Madhukar Gupta, intervene.

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