Delhi MPs Ramvir Bidhuri and Manoj Tiwari on Tuesday assured the residents of the national capital living along the Yamuna, who were concerned about O-Zone issue, that the party won’t allow demolition of any ancient village or colony already regularized.
Bidhuri and Tiwari, addressing a press conference at the Delhi BJP office, have emphasized the BJP and the Central and state governments are sensitive to their concerns regarding designated areas.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor, who was also addressed the media, alleged that the O-Zone issue is a problem created by the Congress and that the previous Arvind Kejriwal regime failed to take any meaningful action to resolve the issue despite being in power for eleven years.
Bidhuri informed that Chief Minister Rekha Gupta had convened a high-level meeting on Tuesday on the O-Zone issue and conveyed that no demolition would be permitted in the old inhabited areas of the villages and 92 colonies currently falling under the O-Zone.
Clarifying that the Delhi High Court’s order pertains only to new constructions, he appealed to the residents of these areas not to undertake any new construction until a final decision is reached.
The CM’s meeting was attended by MPs Manoj Tiwari, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, and Praveen Khandelwal, Chairman of the Yamunapar Development Board and MLA Arvinder Singh Lovely, Chief Secretary Rajiv Verma, Municipal Corporation of Delhi Commissioner Sanjeev Khirwar, and Delhi Development Authority’ Commissioner (Planning) and Commissioner (Land Management).
According to Bidhuri, Chief Minister Gupta was informed during the meeting that these colonies had already been regularized on March 24, 2008, at a time when they fell under the F-Zone rather than the O-Zone. However, on August 10, 2010, the previous governments at Centre and Delhi placed these areas in the Yamuna O-Zone.
Following public objections, the DDA issued a draft notification on September 28, 2013 proposing to shift them back to the F-Zone from the O-Zone. The draft notification had received approval from the then Union Urban Development Minister, but the final notification has not yet been issued.
Bidhuri added that both the government’s Principal Committee and the DDA already completed physical demarcation while an expert committee concluded that these villages and colonies do not adversely affect the river’s flow or ecological quality.
He further informed that it was decided during the meeting that all MPs, under the leadership of the Chief Minister, would soon meet Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Manohar Lal and present factual position so that justice can be ensured for the 1.5 million affected residents.