Letter of 18.05.2001 - Federation of RWAs of Vasant Kunj

From Chairman of Federation of RWAs of Vasant Kunj to DDA Commissioner (Planning) with copy to CMO under Bhagidari (no.BHAGIDARI/VC-DDA/02 about residents’ concerns about DDA’s "planned" development in Vasant Kunj) 

Mr Vijay Risbud, Commissioner (Planning), DDA
Vikas Minar, I P Estate, N Delhi – 110 002

Sub: Residents’ concerns about DDA’s ‘planned’ development in Vasant Kunj

Ref: Our letter no. BHAGIDARI/VC-DDA/02 dated 02.05.2001 and our meeting with you and your officers in your office on 17.05.01

Dear Mr Risbud,

Thank you for meeting with us in response to our letter cited above and for giving us a copy of DDA’s latest approved layout plan of Vasant Kunj and for deputing Mr Satsangi to provide clarifications that we might need after we have studied the same.

We appreciate very much your cooperative and transparent manner and look forward to your support in addressing our concerns about DDA’s development in Vasant Kunj.

We will be writing to you in detail after our experts have had studied your plan in the context of the problems being faced by residents of Vasant Kunj. At present, we would like to mention only two points in continuation of our earlier letter cited above and a cursory perusal of the plan you gave us yesterday:

  1. In your plan no development is shown in the area opposite Ryan School where soil testing is being done for making more flats beyond the end of Vasant Kunj. On the other hand flats indicated in the plan as D-5 and part of D-4 in the middle of the layout have not been built. It was suggested in yesterday’s meeting that DDA has changed the planned location of some flats on account of soil conditions. If the proposed flats are in lieu, say, of the ones initially planned on D-4/5 sites, please clarify how it is being ensured that the latter sites in the middle of Vasant Kunj will not be subsequently used for building more houses either by DDA or someone else. We would like to reiterate our belief that further construction and allotment of DDA flats in Vasant Kunj should be stopped till DDA has assessed the requirements of existing population and whether and how these can be met with existing infrastructure resources
  2. In the vicinity of the site for community centre, your plan shows a gobar gas plant near Masudpur and flats across and to the south of the main road. In reality, these sites are occupied by, respectively, the Central market and other shops/offices that, as mentioned in our earlier letter, are causing problems of traffic and visual squalor. Building a community centre here without regard to the unplanned shops that have already come up will exacerbate our problems. We would like to reiterate our belief that DDA should stop construction / allotment of commercial space in Vasant Kunj till it has assessed outstanding need / demand in the context of existing "unplanned" establishments and worked out a strategy for suitably integrating them in further "planned" development.

We look forward to your views in respect of the above and hope that DDA will hold further work on the Community Centre and the new flats in abeyance till these concerns are adequately addressed.

Warm regards

Sd/-

O N Shukla, Chairman

cc for information:

  • Mr Hari Om Gupta, OSD to CM, with grateful acknowledgement of copy of letter dated 11.05.2001 no. CMO/PGC/2001/1679, forwarding our letter dated 02.05.01 (cited above) to OSD to VC, DDA