Amid concerns among residents over the installation of fresh signboards marking Delhi’s environmentally sensitive Zone O areas along the Yamuna floodplains, chief minister Rekha Gupta will chair a meeting on Tuesday with MPs, MLAs and officials to review the issue and address fears of possible action against unauthorised constructions, officials said.
The meeting will be attended by Members of Parliament and legislators from constituencies affected by the move. The installation of the signboards in several floodplain localities has triggered apprehension among residents, many of whom fear it could be a precursor to demolition drives against unauthorised structures.
“A meeting will be held on Tuesday to discuss issues concerning areas falling within Zone O. Concerns have been raised over the installation of the signboards and the matter will be taken up with the relevant authorities,” an official said.
The issue of removing several regularised colonies from the Zone O category is also likely to figure in the discussions. Last week, South Delhi MP Ramvir Singh Bidhuri met Gupta and urged the government to facilitate the removal of 92 colonies from the category, arguing that they had already been regularised in 2008 and that residents should be granted ownership rights.
Bidhuri said that 45 such colonies are located within his parliamentary constituency, spread across the Mithapur, Jaitpur and Harinagar areas of the Badarpur Assembly segment. Similar colonies, he said, are located in the New Delhi, East Delhi, North-East Delhi, West Delhi and North-West Delhi parliamentary constituencies.
Residents and public representatives have maintained that the status of these colonies needs to be clarified to remove uncertainty over property rights and future development in the affected areas.