Delhi will have to pay a huge price for “unhealthy and unhygienic” living as 90% of buildings here are illegal, the Delhi High Court was told on Wednesday.
A three-member expert panel, set up by the High Court to look into illegal constructions, told a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar that the “magnitude of illegal construction is huge”.
Holding the government and the civic bodies responsible for the “current mess”, the committee said: “The city will pay a huge price in unhealthy and unhygienic living for generations to come.”
‘Redemption possible’
The panel, however, said that “redemption was still possible”. It said that out of an estimated 4-4.5 million structures in Delhi, “90% violate some provision of the extant building by-laws”.
“The violations range from construction without sanctioned plans to construction on open lands marked in layout/location plan as belonging to the municipal corporations of Delhi or the Delhi government,” the panel added.
The court had on May 16 appointed a panel to inspect the properties of all three municipal bodies here and file a report in six weeks. The court issued the direction after it was flooded with several public interest litigations (PILs) alleging presence of illegal constructions in all corners of the Capital.
The panel, in its report, has said that the committee went around the city and saw that in an area where there is supposed to be no construction at all, there was a resident population of 1.5 million living in structures and shelters of various sizes. It has also said that some of the settlements were even approved by the government.
