NEW DELHI: The formation of yet another committee to look into the issue of unauthorised constructions in the Capital has left not only the people of Delhi perplexed but also senior Municipal Corporation of Delhi officials who have undertaken the task of cleaning up the mess of illegal constructions that have come up over the years. While these moves are being seen as yet another attempt by the Congress to pacify angry residents, civic body officials feel that raising false hopes among people through such committees would only make their task difficult as they are bound by court orders.

After the citywide demolition drive gained momentum in mid-December last year following stern High Court orders, the game of political one-upmanship began between Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and her bete noire, Delhi Congress chief Ram Babu Sharma, who has the support of the majority of Congress councillors. Battle lines were also drawn between Ms. Dikshit and the Congress leaders in the MCD with the latter accusing the Chief Minister of interfering in the work of an elected body.

This forced the Congress party to intervene, which formed a four-member committee to coordinate with the MCD and the Delhi Government to look into various aspects of unauthorised constructions and find a solution to it. This was decided at a meeting of the Coordination Committee for Delhi headed by AICC general secretary in-charge Delhi Ashok Gehlot. The committee was headed by Delhi Urban Development and Finance Minister A. K. Walia with Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, Ms. Dikshit and Mr. Sharma as it members.

However, the committee was dissolved after just three meetings where reports of differences between Ms. Dikshit and her Cabinet colleague, Dr. Walia and Mr. Sharma, also came up. Another issue was the constitutional legality of the committee. Interestingly, Municipal Commissioner A.K. Nigam was asked to attend its meetings, to which Delhi Lieutenant-Governor B.L. Joshi had strongly objected.

However, as public pressure mounted particularly after the court asked to target Lal Dora areas also, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh intervened and on February 7 directed the Union Urban Development Ministry to constitute a high-power technical committee to study the issue of violations in various categories and suggest measures to solve the problem. The five-member committee, headed by former Lieutenant-Governor Tejinder Khanna, has been given three months time to submit its report.

Yet another twist to the entire issue came on February 20 when the Delhi Cabinet approved setting up of a five-member committee under Dr. Walia to study the application of the 1963 notification in the Lal Dora areas and suggest measures to deal with the emerging situation. This raised many eyebrows in the Congress both at the Central and State levels as the similar issue also comes under the purview of the committee formed by the Centre.

And now on February 25, Mr. Sharma constituted a 17-member high-power committee to gather suggestions from party workers on the issue of unauthorised constructions and demolitions and place them before the five-member committee headed by former Lieutenant-Governor Tejinder Khanna.

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