Malviya Nagar Fire Delhi Bnb Noc Accountability Police Mcd

criminal negligence.

It starts with the MCD, which is the agency for granting building permits. The “Lal Dora” exemption does not apply to commercial buildings. A permission for a commercial building of this size would never have been allowed on a narrow road. This was a massive six-storey structure for which an NOC from the fire department was mandatory. Where was the fire department when an illegal building was being built and later operated as a hotel on a narrow road where fire engines could not have reached? How could the tourism department have issued a licence even for a six-room B&B, when the building was illegal and there was no clearance from the fire department or police?

A report of the inspection committee, consisting of officials from the tourism department, DTDC, and Delhi police, was mandatory for issuing the B&B licence. How did they give clearance? If they did not inspect and went ahead with the grant of licence, that would suggest something worse. The police department was mandatorily bound by regulations to check the guest list of every hotel from the point of view of national security. Was this done?

According to my rough estimate, more than 50 per cent of Delhi’s buildings are illegal. This includes residential houses, hotels and commercial spaces. Even for buildings constructed legally, with all the necessary approvals, a bribe has to be paid. Various states in the country have fixed rates which are known to the public. For illegal buildings, the rates are much higher. Most of the money collected goes to officials at various levels. Politicians get the crumbs that fall from the table. Yet it is the political class that gets all the blame.

Our cities are lawless. Is it possible to set them, right?

I was Commissioner, Delhi Development Authority, 1992-1997. I was the first South Indian Commissioner of the DDA and it was said of me that as a “Madrasi” with no political patronage and very little knowledge of Hindi I would be able to do nothing. We demolished 14,310 illegal buildings, some built by politicians. In fact, the first building we knocked down was that of Congress leader HKL Bhagat. Not one inch of land belonging to the DDA was encroached on. Not one illegal brick was laid in five years. In a survey by a leading newspaper, 89.6 per cent of Delhiites supported this “Madrasi”. I was able to do what I did not because I am more intelligent or capable than other civil servants. It is because I believed that as a bureaucrat my mission is to do my job, with no excuses.

If bureaucrats do their job as envisioned by Prime Minister Modi, our cities can still be made liveable. The buck should stop with the bureaucrat.

The writer was from the 1979 batch of the IAS and is a former Union Minister