HC urges govt to make policy for workspace for artisans

The Delhi High Court today directed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the local bodies to formulate a policy for allocating land for the work of artisans who come here to make and sell their wares like idols during festivals.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said the authorities, while coming out with such a plan, will also have to consider providing temporary housing and sanitary facilities to these workers.

It directed the Principal Secretary of the Urban Development department of the Delhi government to hold a meeting with senior officials of municipal bodies to come up with a scheme.
 

The court further said the deliberations of the meeting should be placed before it on the next date of hearing on December 5.

The bench also directed the payment of Rs 2,500 as token damages to eight artisans who had suffered loss due to the SDMC's alleged act of demolishing and confiscating some of the effigies of Ravana and others which are set ablaze as part of the Dussehra celebrations.

The corporation had also allegedly demolished the temporary shelters set up by the workers.

The affected artisans were identified by advocate Ashok Agarwal who was appointed as a local commissioner by the court to visit the Titarpur area in west Delhi, where the craftsmen were working and to assess the losses suffered by them.

The order came on a PIL initiated by the court on its own after it came across a news report saying that several Ravana effigies, built by artisans who came here from Rajasthan for Dussehra, were destroyed or confiscated by the south Delhi municipal corporation (SDMC) for allegedly encroaching on public land.

The bench on the last date of hearing had observed that while the authorities permit construction of unauthorised buildings by the "rich", they remove the "poor" by calling them encroachers.

It had said that the authorities should have anticipated that the artisans would come here during Dussehra to make effigies and ought to have made appropriate arrangements for them to work and stay.

Defending its action taken between September 15 and 18, the SDMC had claimed that it had received a letter from the Delhi Metro that the artisans had taken over land and were blocking the main road in the Titarpur area.