No house demolished by DDA to beautify Delhi for G20 Summit, govt tells Rajya Sabha

 No house has been demolished by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to beautify the city for the G20 Summit, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry told the Rajya Sabha on Monday. In the last few months, the national capital has witnessed the demolition of several structures, including religious ones, as authorities launched their anti-encroachment drive in different areas.

Delhi is hosting the G20 Summit in September. "The DDA has informed that no house has been demolished to beautify the city for G20 Summit," Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishore said in a written reply to a question asked by RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Kumar Jha.

Jha had asked whether houses have been demolished in New Delhi by DDA in order to beautify the city for the G20 summit. Kishore said that however, the identification of encroachment on government/DDA land and its removal is a continuous activity. A special task force (STF) under the chairmanship of the DDA vice chairman has been constituted on April 25, 2018, to oversee the enforcement of provisions of the master plan for Delhi 2021 and Unified Building Bye-laws for Delhi, the minister said.

“The STF identifies and also receives complaints of unauthorised encroachments, illegal constructions and violations of building bye-laws and thereafter directs the concerned urban local bodies to take suitable action in the matter on a continuous basis," he added.

The DDA has carried out 49 demolition programmes in Delhi so far since April 1 in which an area measuring 229.137 acres has been reclaimed, the minister said. In February, an anti-encroachment drive was launched in the Mehrauli Archaeological Park area, triggering protests from many residents and a political slugfest in the national capital.

Last month, a demolition drive was conducted to remove illegal structures in a slum cluster near Pragati Maidan. Earlier this month, authorities removed a temple and a mazar in Delhi's Bhajanpura. Notices have also been sent to a mosque in the Bengali Market area and another near the Pragati Maidan metro station, asking them to remove encroachments within 15 days. Recently, the Delhi government has set a deadline of July 31 for the agencies to wrap up the repair work on roads, parks, flyovers, and underpasses underway for the G-20 Summit.