New
Delhi: The 17 flats which DDA said were constructed illegally in the
upper basement of the Games Village will soon be demolished. The
building department of the Delhi Development Authority issued notices to
the developer Emaar MGF to this effect on May 2.
The
vice-chairman of the land agency (DDA), G S Patnaik, said these flats
were “illegal and have been sealed as of now”. The flats were not
constructed as per the sanctioned building plan, said DDA officials.
“The required notice for carrying out the demolition has already been
served to Emaar, which has given its consent to go ahead with the
demolition action,” said Patnaik.
The issue of the illegality of these flats cropped up just before the Commonwealth Games.
The
total cost of these flats is between Rs 30 crore and Rs 40 crore, said
sources. The developer apparently gave an application on April 28,
saying it is ready to remove the unauthorized flats in the upper
basements/stilt area without prejudice to their contention and rights
under Master Plan-2021 and the building bylaws, provided the completion
certificate is soon issued to the balance 1,168 flats in 34 towers.
With Emaar having sold off its share of 450-odd flats, the people who bought them for anything between Rs 2 crore and Rs
5 crore each have been asking the developer to hand over the property.
The remaining flats are with DDA. But no flat can be allotted before the
completion certificate is issued. Sources said the developer decided to
forego the loss of having the 17 flats demolished to expedite the
process of getting the completion certificate.
DDA claimed a lot
of other issues needed to be dealt with before a completion certificate
could be given for the rest of the flats. “Waterproofing of the
basement is still going on and the completion certificate can only be
given once this exercise has been completed. Besides, as per the
lieutenant-governor’s orders, DDA has to ascertain whether the
construction of the Village complex is within the overall ambit of
Master Plan-2021 and the unified building bylaws which are in force in
Delhi,” said a DDA official.
How these flats could have come up
without DDA’s knowledge is something that no one in the land agency is
willing to answer. “We do not know how these flats could have been
constructed without any DDA official knowing about it but they were
definitely not part of the building plan sanctioned,” said a source. As
per the sharing basis, the land agency would have got six — one-third —
of these 17 flats.
During a recent hearing, DDA representatives
submitted that these unauthorized flats were unsafe and not likely to be
fit for habitation because widespread seepage in the basement area was
noticed during floods in April/September 2010. Moreover, several service
lines of other flats are passing along the roofs of the unauthorized
flats, they said.
The buyers of the flats, however, continue to
suffer. “We had bought these flats as it was a government project with a
time-bound deadline. We were supposed to have got possession by this
March. We are suffering huge losses as many of us are paying 12% as
annual interest on the loans taken from banks,” said Dhiraj Mathur of
the Commonwealth Games Village Allottees Welfare Association.