MCD hoist with its own petard

EDIFICE OF ILLEGALITY/ Affected citizens may come out with the truth on bribes

The number 18,271 may seem like a big number in any statistical category, especially considering that this is the number of illegal constructions to be demolished by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) within a four-week court-imposed deadline.

What is more startling is, however, the fact that these illegal constructions are for the past four years (between 2001 and 2005) and the actual number could be higher.

The MCD, responsible for making sure that buildings in Delhi come up in accordance with the strict building bye laws and zone laws, seems to have failed in its task miserably--a fact borne out by the affidavit filed by the civic bodies' lawyers in the Delhi High Court, which recommends that action be taken against 933 MCD officials for dereliction of duty in checking the menace.

"The action is for negligence or dereliction of duty. We are not saying that money has changed hands," says Tarun Sharma, one of the lawyers hired by the MCD in the battery of public interest litigation filed by resident welfare associations (RWAs) protesting against illegal construction.

But money has evidently changed hands, as is seen from the fact that every year between 2000 and 2005 thousands of cases have been booked (see table) but no action has taken against these constructions.

"The moment a truck appears with construction material, the process of bribing begins, with first the police and then the hierarchy of engineers," a shopkeeper in Lajpat Nagar said, whose petty shop is facing demolition.

"Not just that, the executive engineers harass us that they have to pay off local politicians, who demand their share. In exchange the politicians promise to leave us alone," the shopkeeper added.

In 2001-2002, Madan Lal Balmiki, an MCD councillor from the Karol Bagh area, was almost arrested for blackmailing owners of illegally constructed houses. "His modus operandi was simple; he would find out where the illegal construction was, book a complaint and inform the owners that he was open to 'persuasion' to withdraw his complaint," said an MCD senior official.

Not just this way, money was made by the MCD officially too. In 2001 a committee set up under senior BJP MP V K Malhotra recommended that illegal constructions like alterations made to houses be allowed after the payment of a penalty.

The MCD advertised the findings of the committee even though the Union urban development ministry did not agree with them. Money poured in and till date the MCD has not been able to account for the Rs 64 crore that it collected in the name of regularising illegal constructions.

As angry residents and shopkeepers who could not ensure the safety of their constructions despite having greased many palms begin to spill the beans on the graft in the MCD, the civic body would find it hard to run away from the skeletons in the debris.