Architects at the Delhi Development Authority have begun work on developing an ambitious high-density residential project spread over 320 hectares in Narela Sector A1-A4 which when completed will have 26,000 flats, including 14,000 flats for Low-Income Groups and Economically Weaker Sections.
While a Screening Committee had first granted approval for residential development here in 2004, the project never really took off. In between, a plan to allot the land for setting up a National Institute of Technology was proposed by the Union Human Resources Development Ministry. But the meeting of the DDA authority on October 5 finally cleared the land allotment for the NIT in another part of Narela, a DDA official said.
“There was a lot of opposition to setting up the NIT in A1-A4 because vacant land is available here and is ideal to utilise for high-density residential development,” the official said.
A chief architect has been nominated for the project and he will work out plans for the numbers of houses, types of houses, street layout, commercial areas, roads and other facilities in conformity with zonal development plans and suggestions emanating from the ongoing review of the Delhi Master Plan-2021, the official added.
The project is estimated to take over three years to complete. The DDA has been attempting to project Narela as an affordable destination for those seeking low-income group flats for the past several years. But the poor transportation and inadequate water supply facilities have ensured that development has come at a slow pace and occupancy rates in DDA flats here is low.
“There is a water supply requirement of 3 MGD but Narela gets only 0.3 MGD supply from the Delhi Jal Board. The DDA is now installing tubewells, providing chlorinated water and conducting regular testing of the water to ensure water quality. For the future development, the Lieutenant-Governor has ordered that wherever DDA builds flats, it should provide a tubewell and reverse-osmosis water purification system,” the official said.
The Delhi Development Authority had in June formally requested Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to provide metro connectivity to Narela in its Phase-IV expansion plans and had also offered to fund the project on the same lines as adopted for extension of metro services to Dwarka sub-city.
The Narela Zone is spread over an area of 7,465 hectares and has an estimated population of nearly 16.2 lakh.
