Dear Prof Ribeiro,

Thank you for posting your letter to Secretary MoUD on the web. As always, I am indebted to you for enlightening me - about IBC this time. IBC website provides some more useful information, including that Minister for Urban Development is its Chief Patron, Secretary Urban Development is its Patron, Eng. OP Goel (a profile of whom is also elsewhere on the web) is its Founder President, DDA Commissioner (Planning) is a vice-President in its current Executive Committee, etc. About IBC awards I was not able to find on the website any more detail than categories in which it is conferred. About its purpose, you say that “Nowhere have they mentioned 'to encourage new talent ……among architects'. Even newkerala.com in their news item quotes Eng. O.P.Goel, Chairman IBC as saying "The annual awards …..were instituted…..for outstanding work done in building construction". The news item does say “…O.P. Goel, chairman of IBC. "We have instituted these awards to encourage new talent and boost innovativeness among architects here," he said”, but I am sure you have confirmed with Eng.Goel.

Thank you for clarifying that the award was for the firm in which, besides you, Uday and Manjari, my contemporaries and friends in SPA (architecture) are also partners. They have, I understand, been doing a lot of very committed work for disaster prone areas and I am very happy for them that it has been honored.

You have clarified that the selected projects were not “short-listed after the Indian Builders Congress (IBC) scrutinised all the buildings constructed in the country last year”, as stated in the news item, and asserted that “No section of the Architects' Act and no code of conduct regulated by the Council of Architecture has come into play, leave alone been violated by the Hon. Minister for Urban Development, the promoters, the participants, the awardees or any institution - government or otherwise in IBC, 2003.” You have copied your letter to “Register, COA” which presumably means that both views are now before CoA and I will wait for its view on this.

My letters were not quite about the IBC award for your firm’s project in Bhuj, but about awards for projects that violate Delhi Master Plan. You (not Uday or Manjari) being a co-awardee with those does upset me very much. My letter to Secretary MoUD (IBC Patron), to whom yours is addressed, made no reference to you or to your project. Your question about “what constitutional responsibility Ms. Gita Dewan Verma has attempted to foist on the Hon. Minister in these awards” can be answered in three words – Delhi Master Plan, maybe four more – National Common Minimum Programme (which does acknowledge the people’s mandate for change and, as per the President’s interpretation, restoration of rule of law) and, perhaps, also two further ones that I do not quite know about – Chief Patron. Neither MoUD Secretary nor Minister are planners and I consider it my privilege and responsibility to bring to their attention whatever appears to me to be a violation of Delhi Master Plan with a view to assist them in their responsibilities and I entirely disagree with you suggestion that “for some credibility” in this I should first check with things like IBC Award citations. You have taught me well enough, Sir, for me not to need to look at anything other than the Plan and the ground to spot violations. Perhaps you have become too busy with other things to spot them yourself.

About Delhi Government Secretariat, you say “the plot known as ‘Players Building’ is within zone D-2 of the Master Plan” and that “Perhaps in her expose, Ms.Verma implied an overlap in land use between the Player’s Building’ in Zone D-2 and an area she calls the river bed, whereas MPD 2000 demarcates zone O, undoubtedly to define the flood plains for concerted actions, among other reasons, to protect Zone D-2 and other adjoining zones”. You wrote MPD 2001, but I do not read in it protection of Zone D-2 as any key purpose of designation of riverbed as Zone O. You seem to suggest I am confused about what should be called riverbed and Zone O and Zone D2 and where the plot called ‘Players Building’ sits in all this. You are missing my point being not about a Zonal Plan violation (incidentally, since 1990, Zone D, not sub-zone D-2, has legal parity with Zone O, no?) but about Master Plan violation. You say, “MPD 2000 has updated the land uses in this portion of the zone”, but you do not mention that MPD 2001 Land Use Plan does not earmark the plot for Government Offices. You mention “other published legal updates”, but no specific notification for change of land use by due process of s.11A (inclusive of Public Notice). You ask Secretary MoUD, who is not a planner, “Is it that the offices of Delhi Adminstration does not fit into this framework ??”. Yes Sir, it is indeed that it does not. In disregard of mandatory Public Notice process – ie, in violation of the citizens’ right to lawfully participate in planned development of Delhi – government of Delhi picked up the Players’ Building for itself whereas others might have considered it better for any number of things, including, say, hostel as proposed in case of Commonwealth Games Village. (Why, we might have made you write a suggestion on our behalf when you were SPA Director, like we made or tried to make Prof Raori write in 1986!). Sir, what is even more exceptionable is that an award was offered and accepted here on the heels of clearance of Yamuna Pushta in ways that leave a lot to be explained, including now deaths of children in Bawana. And no, Sir, I do not desire any “credibility” that requires me to check with IBC before making this comment. I stand by it, and even if you were to produce a notification and proof of s.11A having been complied with as well as details of the award nomination and selection to prove conformity with Award procedures, I would still defend my case against the Secretariat – on grounds of s.7 staging provisions read with the monitoring provisions of the Master Plan that you wrote and of Delhi government’s omissions and commissions, especially through Pushta clearance. Hence the request at no.2 in my letter to Secretary MoUD, a request you have not commented on.

About ‘The Garden of Five Senses’, you say it is “within Zone J of MPD 2000. It seems to be part of a land use category called regional/district park in MPD 2000. Here too, I am unclear on the nature of land use violation which Ms.Verma perceives in this case.” Permit me, Sir, to clarify. The only colours indicated in J-Zone on the MPD land use plan (apart from the yellow of Vasant Kunj) are, as they can be, Dark Green (Regional Park) and White (Agriculture and Water Body, inclusive of MPD 1962 Green Belt). In terms of MPD, the 5-senses garden is not a ridge regional park, but a District Park (which MPD land use plan indicates in Light Green) and is violative of MPD in terms of land use and also because Zonal Plan for J-Zone has not been notified and as per MPD development code read with s.8 use premises cannot be designated in it, including for District Park. It is grabbing site for regional park, while regional park (being developed as Aravali Biodiversity Park) is grabbing MPD residential land near Vasant Kunj Malls (illegal for not being one of 136 uses listed in the schedule to DC, etc). Even as mandatory low-income housing in the area has not been developed as per explicit MPD targets, on 29 July 2004, in violation also of National Common Minimum Programme, a thousand families in decades old settlements were evicted in monsoon for illegal Biodiversity Park that could have been where 5-senses Garden is, illegally. Like you, Sir, “I do not know much about these projects of NCTD”, but it seems Delhi Government knows even less about implications of Master Plan violations. Shenanigans in ridge area / J-Zone are not limited to 5-senses Garden and are growing, despite High Court order of 16.09.2002 for inquiry of Sultangarhi project so that identical illegalities would not be perpetuated by the authorities. Hence the request at no.1 in my letter to Secretary MoUD, about which also you have not commented.

You say, Sir, that “Ms. Verma has rushed into ‘statements’ against three professionals and some institutions by piecing together a news item, her inferences from it and otherwise wrong or half-truth statements” and that the award “ceremony was widely reported as an IBC success and one is at a loss to understand Ms. Geeta Dewan Verma's unresearched and selective ‘statements’ through these awards followed by a ‘suo motto’ apology to the Hon. President of India on behalf of the profession of Planners and Architects”. In the professional space I have chosen to occupy, Sir, there are constraints in terms of access to secondary-source information. I rely a lot on news reports (though I missed the wide reportage on IBC success) and try to use them responsibly. I have nowhere made ‘statements’ against three professionals. I have commented on illegalities of two projects and I have said that if I were in your position I would not have accepted this award. My research on IBC Awards might be badly wanting, but my research on subversion of Delhi Master Plan, I assure you, is not. I track ridge and riverbed violations as part of this, not only because I consider Zone-J and Zone-O zones of maximum plannerly responsibility but also on behalf of those whom I advise in their pursuits of their Master Plan entitlements to housing, education, livelihood, water, environment, heritage, etc, so that they can keep adding to their matters pending adjudication by courts, hearing by Standing Parliamentary Committee, response to s.11A Public notices and other options that remain at least open to citizens.

I might be fully wrong about my ‘statements’ about IBC and its award (a, b, c, f in your response, para-2). I might also be wrong about AMDA having anything to do with MPD (e in your response, para-2), an impression I had from young professionals recruited through AMDA for the Plan revision, or even about AMDA’s structure (my reference to MoUD’s responsibilities being apropos not that but its membership by way of authorities with which MoUD does have much to do and, hence, I do not concur with your view that “Minister for Urban Development and his ministry have no Constitutional or any other role in AMDA” - besides which, am I right in my recollection that MoUD Secretary is also AMDA Patron?). Whether the award calls for investigation or not (g in your response, para-2) is something I had left to CoA and my quarrel is limited to awards for violations and, frankly, after all-round indifference to three such Aga Khan Awards, over one of which I quit the mainstream in 1997, I was not expecting any response. The question of ethic (d in your response, para-2) I do not think can be simply settled on basis of qualification and registration. It remains my opinion that planners who profess at levels of statutory framework setting should not commercially practice design – in order to avoid conflict (avoidance that is not easy, as demonstrated by your focus on your project in your response to my communications about ridge and riverbed violations) and also that educators should encourage younger professionals to make space for themselves so there is no rupture in trans-generational continuity in discharge of professional responsibilities. How you wish to settle the question of ethics really does not quite concern me, since I set and follow my own professional standards.

Sir, if you are still “at a loss to understand” why I apologized to the President of India, I did so to apologize to the People of India for a situation in which his office was drawn into endorsing violations of law. I apologized on behalf of the planning profession because I think we are the custodians of planning law since we best understand it and have mostly been trained at public expense to do so. I apologized on behalf of the architectural profession because there are quite a few Architect-cum-Planners. I apologized also because his office being involved in honouring ridge and riverbed violations after having forwarded for appropriate action my representation about Master Plan subversion marked a disrespect to which I was somewhat party by having made the representation that got forwarded. I apologized ‘suo motto’ because that is the nature of the professional space I have chosen to occupy (what you call ‘suo motto’ could equally be construed as professional representation of thousands whom I advise in their engagements in pursuit of statutory Master Plan solutions and perhaps also of professionals marginalized by the mainstream).

You say, Sir, “I only wish that Ms. Gita Dewan Verma had done some homework before taking upon herself to rush in with an apology to the Hon. President of India "for failure of the planning and architecture profession to prevent irregularities" on issues centering round this award”. You are misquoting me, Sir. I do not use words like “irregularities” or take award-centric perspectives. The projects honoured involve illegalities in terms of Delhi Master Plan and I think I have done enough homework on that and would be more than happy to do corrections as well if you would point out my mistakes. You have neither said the projects are legal nor quite countered my contention that they are not. You have only posed questions that I hope I have adequately answered. I apologized for a situation that I maintain was most unfortunate and should not have arisen. With your response defending the IBC Award without taking a position about, indeed by obfuscating, the fact that the projects honoured involve Delhi Master Plan violations, perhaps I need to apologize again.

As incidental clarification, since we have been somewhat out of touch and since you say that “Surely, in defence of her very impressive credentials as projected in her letters to the Hon. President of India and others and the web she does have her own credibility to defend, as crusader for saner settlements and citizen concerns”, I need to make some more ‘statements’. I do not work as ‘crusader’ for sanity or concerns, but as planner for lawful planned development. I ‘project’ my ‘very impressive credentials’ (legacy from my days in the mainstream that ceased long ago to impress me) only because I cannot tolerate professional planning being called ‘crusading’, ‘activism’, etc, while planners are maligned for occupying ivory towers with no concern for reality. I have no cause left to defend either my credentials or my credibility to anyone save those who care or are duty-bound to care about planned development. It saddens me very much, Sir, that you, who have known me since I was a baby-Planner, have questioned my credentials and credibility as Planner just to defend some building awards.

Your sincerely,

Gita Dewan Verma, Planner

(posted on 27.08.2004, with information via e-mail to Prof Ribeiro copied to mail-lists; typos corrected on 31.08.2004)