Deadlock over rental resolved, Signature View residents to start moving out: DDA

Earlier, the LG asked DDA to “vacate and dismantle” the 12 towers of Signature View after an IIT Delhi report deemed it unfit for habitation.

In a meeting on Wednesday, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Delhi lieutenant governor (LG) approved the final offer to residents explaining the terms for vacating and rebuilding of the Signature View apartment (SVA) complex in Mukherjee Nagar area of North Delhi.

Damaged ceiling of the stilt parking at a tower in the Signature view Apartments at Mukherjee Nagar. (Sanchit Khanna/HT)

DDA will offer two options to residents — buy back and reconstruction. The terms of both options have been agreed upon by RWA and a final agreement will be signed by DDA as well as residents before the residents start vacating the premises, DDA officials said.

“One of the options is direct buy back of the flats wherein DDA will pay back the cost of capital paid by allottees along with interest plus the stamp duty paid at the time of registration. The other option is reconstruction of the flats wherein DDA will provide newly built flats at the same place with same specifications. However, better amenities and civic services will be provided in consonance with Unified Building Bye Laws (UBBL) in vogue. Further, facilitation amount towards rent would also be paid during the construction period till the time offer letter is issued to all the allottees/owners,” a DDA statement said.

Officials added that the agreement with options will be prepared soon and every flat owner will sign it mentioning their preferred option, before evacuation begins.

Earlier this year, the LG asked DDA to “vacate and dismantle” the 12 towers of Signature View after an IIT Delhi report deemed it unfit for habitation. The residents earlier rejected DDA’s offer stating that the rent it was offering to pay was lower than the rates in the area, and that it would be making over 250 additional flats in the same area.

The new proposal fulfils with most of the demands put forward by residents. It mentions that rent of ₹50,000 will be offered to HIG flat owners and ₹38,000 to MIG flat owners for the next three years, till the flats are dismantled and reconstructed. If the construction takes more time, the proposal will be reviewed and the rent will be extended till the offer letter is given to residents.

For those residents who opt for buy back, DDA will offer to pay the cost of the flat at 10.6% interest rate and stamp duty.

RWA members said that while most residents are happy with the latest proposal it will be finally approved in a General Body Meeting (GBM) of the RWA. The meeting will be organised as soon as the RWA receives a formal written proposal from DDA mentioning all the clauses.

“Our main demand was rent for all as we were initially told that only those owners who are currently living in the society will be given rent. But we have been told that all owners will get rental. The DDA will reconstruct the society with 152 additional MIG and HIG flats, which is also acceptable,” said Amrendra Jha, RWA president, SVA. He also said that the LG reassured them that the DDA would redevelop the entire apartment complex in a time bound manner.

What happened so far?

Construction of Signature View apartments started in 2007 at an estimated cost of ₹29 crore for which DDA hired two construction contractors, M/S Winner Constructions Pvt Ltd. and M/S Grover Construction Pvt Ltd. The work was completed in 2010 at a cost of ₹45 crore, and DDA invited applications the same year. Flats were allotted in 2011 and the possession for the first lot of flats was given to residents in 2012.

SVA is located on the main road barely 1.5 kilometres from GTB Nagar metro station and less than 4km away from the North Campus of Delhi University.

HIG flats, 120 square metres in size, were allotted first in 2010 and cost around ₹75-85 lakh at the time, said residents. The MIG flats measuring 82 square metres were allotted subsequently in 2014 and 2019 and cost around ₹85-95 lakh.

Residents said that the first incidents of falling grit wash plaster and cracks in walls started appearing as early as 2013, within a year of the possession of flats.

Over the next two years, several such complaints were forwarded to DDA and residents demanded urgent repairs.

“DDA had taken approximately ₹6 lakh per flat for the maintenance of the society over the next 30 years. So, it had a corpus of ₹20.6 crore that it can spend on the repair work. We wanted the authority to take responsibility and get a thorough inspection done. We were constantly living in dangerous circumstances,” said Amrendra Jha.

In 2015, DDA appointed the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCCBM) based in Ballabhgarh to conduct tests and give recommendations. While the NCCBM report was never shared with the residents till earlier this year, according to the residents, exterior repair work was started in 2016.

“So, for the next two years, the society was a construction site with scaffolding all over. The grit wash plaster was replaced by concrete plaster and water pipelines and tanks were changed. The officials thought that the problem was with the finishing while nothing was done to strengthen the structure. The work did not help much as damage within the flats continued and more incidents of ceiling collapses were reported,” said Bhupinder K Chaudhary, a resident of Signature View.

As problems continued, the RWA wrote to the DDA VC again in 2019 regarding the problems of falling of ceilings in 26 flats in five blocks, peeling of plasters, CC of roofs of flats, cracks in beams, walls, roof, balconies, drawing rooms, kitchen and washroom. Residents explained that the exposed iron rebars were breaking off and had completely rusted at several places.

DDA finally engaged Professor Shashank Bishnoi from IIT Delhi in March 2022 to analyse the damages at Signature View. He submitted an interim report in June 2022 seeking a more detailed analysis.

After the interim report, over 180 samples were taken from every floor of every tower of the society and the final report was submitted in November 2022. Meanwhile, residents approached the Delhi LG with their complaints.

The IIT Delhi report mentioned that the concrete in structures was of lower grade than expected, with high chloride content in concrete and high water to cement ratio that led to faster rate of carbonation and reduced protection to reinforcement.

The report added that the entire society should be vacated and dismantled as the damages were irreparable and the structure would eventually degrade, making it unsafe for habitation.

“Towers D to L must be vacated as soon as possible due to the extensive deterioration that has already occurred in these towers and must be dismantled as soon as possible to prevent any loss of life. Towers D, E I and L appear to be especially at a high risk due to which they must be vacated immediately,” stated the IIT Delhi report.

In January this year, the LG finally directed DDA to vacate and dismantle the building.