'Vertical growth will put stress'

Take a lesson from what happened in Uttarakhand, says Dikshit

Advocating ‘planned construction’ in the city to avoid Uttarakhand-like calamity, chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday said one should take a lesson from what happened there and check unregulated construction.  

She was addressing a seminar organised by Associate Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

Experts and environmentalists believe that it was a man-made disaster. Even if we assume that cloudburst was created by God, it is still a man-made disaster as construction activities had been going on hill slopes and riverbeds without any check or keeping in mind the safety issues, the chief minister said.

“We have to avoid such situation in Delhi and should have a well-planned construction suitable to our conditions,” Dikshit said.

She said although the city government has to provide shelter for lakhs of migrants coming to city every year, jhuggi jhopri clusters and shanties should not be an option.

“To discourage these illegal and unhealthy settlements, government is mulling to set up holding areas where the migrants could come and hang their bags,” the chief minister said.

She refuted the idea of vertical growth of the city on the grounds that it will put additional stress on existing resources and infrastructure besides severely impacting the ecology.
To keep the ecological balance, Dikshit also exhorted people to plant more trees.

She blamed the existence of multiple authorities that have often acted as major hindrance into several development projects in the city.

“It takes lots of time for any development to take off in Delhi because they should get clearance from multiple agencies like Municipal Corporation of Delhi, New Delhi Municipal Corporation, Delhi Police and Delhi Development Authority. These do not work under Delhi government and often delay the projects by years,” Dikshit said.

When asked about the alleged death of two persons after consuming contaminated water in NCERT colony supplied by the Delhi Jal Board two days ago, Dikshit said it was caused by the internal fault in the supply lines of the colony.

“I don’t want to go in the blame game. But it was caused by their internal fault,” said Dikshit.