delhi

Updated: Aug 03, 2019 05:11 IST

A meeting on Friday between officials of the city authority and residents of Tulsi Niketan ended inconclusively, with the two parties unable to agree terms on a number of key factors that plague the redevelopment of the crumbling locality, residents of which have refused to vacate their houses.

The meeting, between residents and senior officials of the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA), was primarily over the issue of vacating the premises and taking up the redevelopment plan, as flats in the locality have already been declared unsafe by the authority in December 2018. The meeting between the two was held at Tulsi Niketan.

The locality was constructed by GDA in 1988 and comprises around 2,292 flats. As part of its redevelopment plan, the authority wishes to construct new flats for occupants as well as group-housing over three-fourth of the eight-hectare plot to recover the cost of new housing be developed for the current occupants.

“The residents have given us a memorandum in which they have denied the ₹2 lakh payment they need to make for houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme. They want these flats free. They have also stated that the officers under whose tenure the flats worsened in condition be held responsible and action taken. They have also asked that the residents residing on powers of attorney be considered legitimate occupants,” VN Singh, the authority’s chief engineer, said.

A majority of occupants of the 2,292 flats reside without any registry documents while the rest have powers of attorney. The GDA has already written to the state government to allow registries on the basis of the latter.

“Further, they have also demanded profit-sharing in the group housing projects. They want that one room flats be upgraded to two-room flats and two-room flats to three rooms. They have also demanded that the new buildings should not be more than eight-storeys high,” Singh added.

GDA officials during the meeting also distributed pamphlets to the residents asking them to vacate the premises, and informing them of the redevelopment plan.

After the meeting, it was decided that a 10-member delegation of residents will meet with authority officials at their headquarters and discuss modalities of the redevelopment plan.