NEW DELHI: All quarters concerned have reacted along expected lines to the notification of the new Master Plan for Delhi-2021. While traders have welcomed the relief from sealing and demolitions, civil society groups have rejected it as simply non-sustainable. While the Bharatiya Janata Party maintained that MPD-2021 was aimed at attracting voters, the ruling Congress has welcomed it.

Agony

In a statement on Thursday, Confederation of All India Traders secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal said MPD-2021 had come as a much-needed breather for lakhs of traders, their employees and their families who had undergone much mental and physical agony in the past one year. The solidarity showed by the traders through this phase was commendable, he added.

However, Mr. Khandelwal pointed out that while MPD-2021 addressed most of the issues of the traders, traders in the "A" and "B" categories and business establishments carrying activities in upper floors on mixed land use areas were still awaiting relief.

Methodology

Flaying MPD-2021 for its faulty methodology to arrive at a 20-year-plan, Alpana Kishore of New Delhi People's Alliance said the plan was aimed at demand accommodation and not supply management. "The city just does not have the carrying capacity. The current infrastructure is inadequate to hold such huge population and MPD-2021 only adds to the burden by legalising illegal structures," said Ms. Kishore.

Ms. Kishore added that with the notification of the Master Plan, sealing had practically come to a stop.

In the next six months, all parties concerned in the city should be heard on what kind of city they want in the next 20 years.

The traders should be provided legal spaces and removed from illegal areas in a phased manner, she added.

Diwan Singh of Ridge Bachao Andolan, which has taken up the cause of saving the Delhi Ridge from commercial exploitation, described MPD-2021 as an "urban genocide in the making".

He pointed out that malls and skyscrapers across the city would be meaningless if there was no water in the city.

"The Delhi Development Authority, the Union Urban Development Ministry and the Delhi Government are fully aware about the impending water crisis. But this Plan has been made at the behest of builders lobby who do not think about infrastructure and are interested only in vertical and horizontal expansion of the city," said Mr. Singh.

On the political front, Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan said MPD-2021 was a "political document" issued with an intention to rake in votes. "It will not help in the development of Delhi, rather it will ruin the Capital," said Dr. Vardhan.

The State BJP chief pointed out that MPD-2021 does not have a time limit for implementation and nobody has been made accountable.

"It is an old wine in a new bottle," he said. While skyscrapers in sensitive seismic zones had been allowed, the Government was silent on water, power and security in these high rises, he pointed out.

Describing the Master Plan as a historic and invaluable gift to Delhiites, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ram Babu Sharma said it would open the gates for all-round development of the city.

"Lakhs of traders and commercial establishments will benefit from the Master Plan. Besides rehabilitating slum dwellers in flats, shops running from Delhi Development Authority flats will be allowed to operate as before. Special attention had been paid to make Delhi more green and environment-friendly and for this purpose a land measuring 11,000 hectare will be left as green area." He added.

Colonies

Welcoming the notification, Outer Delhi MP Sajjan Kumar said lakhs of people living in villages, unauthorised colonies and traders, small and big shopkeepers as well as all categories of people would benefit.

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