DDA razes Sainik Farms bungalow built on land marked for bio park

DDA officials said the property was one of several farmhouses classified as “illegal encroachments” because they had come up on land acquired and designated as green area

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on Friday morning demolished a bungalow in south Delhi’s Sainik Farms as part of its ongoing anti-encroachment drive against illegally built farmhouses on acquired green land in the Tilpath Valley area.

A farmhouse being razed in Sainik Farms, as part of the demolition drive carried out by the Delhi Development Authority on Friday. (RAJ K RAJ /HT PHOTO)

The action began around 6am, with multiple earthmovers rolling in under heavy police and paramilitary deployment to prevent any law-and-order disruption. According to officials, the property brought down on Friday stood on Khasra No. 596 and had been left untouched during the December 5 demolition drive owing to court directions.

“However, the Delhi High Court, during a hearing on December 10, did not grant any stay in the matter, clearing the way for the DDA to proceed. The demolition was successfully completed today, reclaiming approximately 0.5 acre of government land,” a senior DDA official said.

The authority said the structure, like several others in the area, was outside the ambit of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Special Provisions) Act, 2014, which protects only Jhuggi-Jhopri clusters from punitive action. The land in question, officials added, is part of a designated biodiversity park where no residential construction is permissible.

The action is a continuation of the larger drive carried out on December 5 across Khasra Nos. 595, 596 and 620, where nine properties were identified for demolition in the first phase, officials said. Of these, five — two fully built farmhouses, two semi-built farmhouses and one vacant bounded plot — were razed, leading to the reclamation of four acres of land. Three properties remain untouched due to High Court stay orders.

The owner of the demolished house maintained that the matter was sub judice. He said the plot was purchased in 1993 and the house constructed in 2000. But DDA officials insisted that all such properties were “illegal encroachments” that had come up on land acquired and earmarked as green area.

Originally conceived in the late 1960s as a cooperative society to rehabilitate war widows and retired defence personnel, the Sainik Farms area gradually transformed into an enclave of large houses, villas and high-profile residents.

A 2006 report by former Delhi chief secretary KK Mathur noted that hardly any farmhouses remained in the colony, with plots routinely exceeding 350 sqm, which is one of the criteria that later led to its exclusion from regularisation under the PM-UDAY scheme.