NEW DELHI: Despite this past Thursday's notification by the Union Urban Development Ministry making amendments to the Master Plan for Delhi-2001 to provide relief to traders in the city, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi is in no mood to stop its ongoing sealing and demolition operations across the Capital until it gets a go-ahead from the Supreme Court or the Monitoring Committee.

The deliberative wing of the civic body is constantly pressuring the executive wing to discuss the notification and find out ways to provide relief to traders, but senior bureaucrats are in not mood to oblige the citizens' elected representatives and are continuing with their sealing and demolition action. This time, the senior officials are extra cautious and do not want to annoy the Supreme Court or its Monitoring Committee as they did after the passage of the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2006, by suspending the sealing and demolitions drive.

The MCD officials are in no mood to approach the Monitoring Committee and discuss the new notification on its own. They want that the Centre should directly intervene either by giving directions to stop the drive or to discuss the issue with the Monitoring Committee.

"So far the Monitoring Committee has not asked us to stop the drive and we are continuing with our job to target all illegal commercial establishments and ongoing unauthorised constructions," said a senior MCD official, adding that the top leaders in the deliberative wing were pressuring them to find a way out to stop the drive.

Municipal Councillors belonging to the Congress as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party have asked for immediate convening of the MCD Standing Committee meeting so that the exercise to add new roads and areas for commercialisation could begin. "The work to identify road and areas is already in the last stage. We will discuss the issue in the Standing Committee meeting next week," said the Committee head J. K. Sharma. Similarly, senior BJP Councillor Vijender Gupta said the notification had left traders confused and all their concerns should be immediately addressed.

Interestingly, even if the MCD decides to give relief to the traders, it cannot be done overnight and will take at least a few months to complete the process of legalising shops and regularising residential properties. "The Centre's new notification gives us a framework on which we have to proceed. The onus of identifying and notifying area and roads for commercialisation is on us. After which the affected the traders will have to complete all formalities to legalise their trade and businesses. All this will take time and till then the sealing and demolition action is likely to continue," said a senior MCD official.

The civic body is under pressure to find out ways to provide relief to traders

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