NEW DELHI: Though the Master Plan for Delhi-2021 is likely to be notified in the next couple of days, town planners and environmentalists here feel that so far as betterment of the city is concerned it would not make much of a difference.

Hazards Centre director Dunu Roy, who through his organisation and other fora has been advocating a more scientific approach to town planning based on ground realities, says the MPD is more an instrument to circumvent the decision of the court on unauthorised constructions and sealing. "Therefore, whether the MPD is notified or not, the problems of the people will only continue to grow. Past experiences indicates that as and when needed the authorities will pass another notification to bring in changes that would suit their interests," says Mr. Roy.

Mr. Roy, however, added that the fight against such faulty town planning and the involvement of vested interests would continue through various fora. "Things will change when problems begin mounting," he says. Various other experts have been voicing their concerns over MPD-2021 becoming an instrument in the hands of the land mafia to exploit the situation to their benefit and creating a complete mess of the city.

What has baffled experts is that while the suggestions sent to the Centre by the Delhi Government, following a special session of the Delhi Assembly, and those sent by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) Board have been included in the draft MPD, the Union Urban Development Ministry has just not paid heed to any of their suggestions. This has made the experts even more suspicious of the MPD thatostensibly tries to provide for a city 20 years from now.

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