The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has decided to postpone its recent decision to increase the booking rates of parks for weddings.
The proposal for increasing the rates that was scheduled to be tabled before the MCD House this past week for approval has been put on hold.
“Following the Delhi High Court order banning weddings in around 675 municipal parks in the city, the MCD has decided to ban weddings in the majority of parks. Moreover, the prices of all essential commodities have risen, so in the interest of the common man we have decided that the time is not appropriate for increasing the park booking rates now,” said MCD Leader of House Subhash Arya.
Citing low revenue as the reason, the civic body had proposed a several-fold increase in the booking rates of 144 parks in the Capital this past month. According to the initial proposal, the booking rates of smaller parks were to go up from Rs.500 to Rs. 4,000 a day and the rates of larger parks was to be increased from Rs.5,000 per day to as much as Rs. 25,000 per day.
The civic agency plans to stop usage of all its municipal parks for social functions in a phased manner by the year 2014-2015. To compensate for the loss of open space, the MCD has also proposed to construct 147 community halls by the end of 2015.
The civic body has submitted an affidavit to the Delhi High Court detailing its action plan for phasing out the use of parks.
As per that plan, of the 675 parks used for social functions at present, 302 will be phased out in 2009-2010 and another 70 parks will be phased out in 2010-2011 and so on.
