Indian Government Announces Committee To Legalize Illegal Structures In New Delhi

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today directed the constitution of a high powered committee for legalizing the illegal constructions in New Delhi. Mr Jaipal Reddy, the concerned minister yesterday said that there are thousands of people who are suffering due to small violations. All these statements provide respite for the poor citizens who are mostly unaware of the legality of these constructions.

It is interesting to note why the Central government suddenly came for the rescue of suffering people. One can argue that earlier governments were not in a mood to have a confrontation with the judiciary and were waiting for things to cool down. But looking closely at the most recent statements from the High Court once can easily understand the motives behind such actions from the government.

In the last few weeks, MCD has started demolishing the most high profile buildings and as the High Court has specifically asked to demolish buildings owned by politicians, politicians finally decided to do something effective.

Can the government explain why it did not act when so many innocent people lost there houses for which they invested the savings of their entire life?

It is true that it's not possible to demolish every illegal construction in Delhi. Even the government knew the gravity of the situation and that's why they decided to let things cool down and in the meantime only common people suffered. Now, as the whole of India has seen that the government is respecting the judiciary more than the practical limits, it has finally decided to act.

Instead what the government should have done is to legalize all the illegal structures that are being used for non-commercial uses and at the same time penalized the builders of the legalized structures. And if it is not possible to legalize them they should have offered the houses to the owners at the subsidized rates.

Now as the government has finally decided to legalize them it should not carry out the legalization to allow the engineers and officials of MCD, who are responsible for all these illegal structures, to escape from the law.
And more importantly if the government wants to establish its credibility in front of judiciary it must exclude the commercial buildings from the legalization.