Centre examining land use change for Millennium Depot: HC told

DTC today told Delhi High Court that the Centre was examining the issue of changing land use of site where Millennium Depot is located so that the city government could park its buses there.
The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) told a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath that the Centre has been examining the issue and has sought additional information on it after the Delhi transport minister met the Urban Development minister.
"That now since the Government of India, Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), itself is seized of the matter, the somersault taken by DDA apparently is contrary to its instructions," DTC has said in an affidavit, while seeking six more months to approach DDA for changing land use of the site.

The court listed the matter for further hearing on October 12.
The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) had recently told the court that change in land use was not possible as the NGT had prohibited construction in areas demarcated as zone 'O' and the site of the depot fell in such a zone.
DDA had also told the court that change in land use was not possible as no NOC had been obtained by DTC from MoUD or Land and Development Office (L&DO) with regard to ownership of the site in question.

The transport corporation has said,"Barring the no objection certificate (NOC) from L&DO, all other clearances required to be fulfilled by DTC are only in the form of safeguards to take care of the environmental clearances."

DTC said that a Board of Enquiry set up by DDA to examine issue of shifting the depot or changing land use of the site had recommended that parking of buses be allowed only on soft surface land, subject to obtaining of all necessary environmental clearances and the NOC.
The Board had also recommended that DTC should obtain the NOC and give it to DDA, the corporation has said, adding that the recommendations showed that DDA had earlier no objection to change in land use of the site where the Millennium Bus Depot was built at a cost of Rs 60 crore for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The 50-acre millennium depot was built on the banks of river Yamuna initially as a temporary depot during the 2010 Games, with a parking space for around 1,000 buses, besides various facilities including five workshop-cum-scanning centres, a logistic centre and two CNG-filling stations.