Delhi body reps on study visit to BDA

A team of six officials of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) are on a two-day study visit to the City.

They are holding meetings with heads of all civic agencies here to understand how Bengaluru functions and what are the laws in force here. The team is studying administration in various cities in a bid to revise DDA Act.

The team on Wednesday morning held an hour-long meeting with Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) officials. Madhukar Gupta, former home secretary and chairman of high-level committee heading the team of administrators, former commissioners and engineers appointed to revise the DDA Act, told Deccan Herald that the DDA Act came into being in 1957. Over the years there have been amendments, but now the Act needs to be revised, as many changes have taken place over the years. “The trends of urbanisation have changed and this is why we are visiting many Indian cities and collecting inputs. We have visited Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad. We will also visit Chennai and Mumbai.”

BDA Engineer Member P N Nayak added that meeting with many other City heads have been held in the past, but this is the first time a team from Delhi has visited BDA. The meeting covered many topics including housing, vertical growth, infrastructure, lake restoration, town planning and area expansion. They also wanted to know the planning methods incorporated by the State, BDA and other development agencies.

“The meeting will be helpful to us too in revising and amending the BDA Act of 1976 in future. It will also help us prepare our new Master Plan- 2031, where more emphasis is being given to vertical growth and area expansion. The interaction also helped us understand how space should be utilised to the maximum, Nayak added.