NEW DELHI: One of the pushiest area of South Delhi Vasant Kunj, take a stroll into Sector E and you get a chill down your spine. Rows and rows of vacant flats give a stare at you. It’s weird, haunting and unsettling. But this ghost township is part of the greedy DDA’s prestigious 2008 housing scheme, for which millions of Delhiites had put their luck and money at stake.
It’s a sprawling area housing nearly 800 DDA flats, but it’s lonely and isolated out there. Only 50 families are still hanging on to what they once thought was their dream home. So here’s comes a note of caution. If you have bagged an allotment in the 2010 lucky draw at Vasant Kunj, you could also be a victim of DDA’s disregard. Astonishingly, the agency has failed to provide even the basic amenities of water and electricity even 3 years after the allotment of the flats.
One of the residents, Harish Chand, is still battling it out in his infirm flat at Pocket 2 in Sector E. He has nobody next door, because most allottees have never turned up to live there. But most of these flats have been robed, electric wires hang dangerously and meters have all been stolen. Burglars have a field day in this area and dirt spills over from open drains. Taps run dry and Harish Chand has no option but to buy drinking water. The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has made it clear; it does not have water to provide. “When we complained to DDA about lack of water, we were directly told that DJB cannot supply water. We have been surviving on water from tankers and tube wells. We are barely surviving as just 50-odd families live here. But we still have to
buy drinking water. Pipelines are broken, there’s no impression of maintenance, DDA had just refused to act on it,” said Harish Chand. His suffering began much earlier. Harish and many others had to wait till April 2010 to take possession after a scam hit the DDA housing scheme in 2008.
Manoj Jain, who lives in Punjabi Bagh in his parental house, said that someone was illegally tapping into his meter and stealing power. “I keep coming back to check my flat, the lock outside my flat has been broken and my electricity meter has been tampered. I realized this when I got an overblown power bill this month,” said Jain. There is also no approach road leading to these flats. “I moved into my flat a month back and there are trucks parked there which creates a security threat,” said Rajesh Kayala.
Now, DDA is claiming that construction of the approach road will start in a month’s time. “The tenders have been proposed also floating tenders to provide RO water to the flats. We are now sending water tankers to the area,” said a DDA official.
