This story is from May 15, 2019

DDA doesn’t have enough flats at Kalkaji to take in all

DDA doesn’t have enough flats at Kalkaji to take in all
Kathputli Colony redevelopment project is going on at a slow pace
NEW DELHI: Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is braving a double whammy at its ambitious in-situ slum development projects. While the project at Kathputli Colony has missed several deadlines with the pace of construction work being painfully slow, flats are falling short at the second site at Kalkaji A-14 where construction has been completed.
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DDA has built 20 14-storey residential towers at Kalkaji A-14, which have 3,024 flats to house slum dwellers living in the nearby areas such as Navjeevan Camp, Bhoomiheen Camp, etc.
While work was started at the site six years ago, the number of slum dwellers living in the nearby areas has risen during this period. The agency is finding it impossible to accommodate all the families in the residential complex.
The Kalkaji project was taken up by DDA in 2013. Unlike the Kathputli Colony project, which is being constructed under public-private partnership, the Kalkaji towers are being built by DDA and there is a commercial remunerative component in the project.
The land-owning agency had taken into account around 8,000 families living in different slums in south Delhi’s Kalkaji and Govindpuri areas for the project. The present residential complex has come up on the land that was available in the vicinity. The first lot of 3,000 families from the nearby slums were to be shifted there. The slums vacated by these residents were to be used for developing the next phase of housing. In this manner, in-situ development would have provided housing to all the 8,000 families.

However, now that the number of slum dwellers has risen over the years, the additional families cannot be accommodated in the 3,024 flats built by DDA. “The number of slum residents has grown tremendously in the last few years. We had divided the slums into three different pockets, which now have a large number of people. In fact, one of the pockets alone has 8,000 families, which was the original number of families that we needed to rehabilitate,” said a senior DDA official.
“We are going to conduct a fresh survey. It is likely that the older residents will get the 3,000 flats that have been built. We don’t want a situation where flats are allotted to slum dwellers, but the land on which they are living is not vacated. The portion vacated by them would be separated for redevelopment in the next phase,” the official added.
Another problem for DDA is a huge illegal market that has come up on the main road near the slums. “The complex built by us only has residential units and shops will not be provided any space,” the DDA official said.
As the complex has come up at a prime location in south Delhi, a plan was afoot to sell the flats as part of a housing scheme. However, the decision was overturned. “The flats will be allotted to slum dwellers as we can’t shy from away from our responsibility even if DDA loses money,” the official said.
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