Delhi govt set to revive dormant SRDC for Walled City overhaul

Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood said conservation architects must be involved to prevent irreversible loss of historic structures.

In a fresh attempt to revive the derailed redevelopment of Old Delhi, chief minister Rekha Gupta on Wednesday announced that the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation (SRDC), dormant for nearly three years, will be reconstituted and empowered to steer heritage conservation and urban renewal in the Walled City.

CM Rekha Gupta said the government was preparing a comprehensive plan to restore the historic fabric of Shahjahanabad. (HT archive)

Chairing a high-level meeting at the Delhi Secretariat, Gupta said the government was preparing a comprehensive plan to restore the historic fabric of Shahjahanabad while addressing mounting civic, traffic and infrastructural stress in Chandni Chowk and adjoining neighbourhoods.

“A comprehensive plan will restore the heritage of the Walled City. The reconstituted SRDC will include experts in heritage conservation, urban design and cultural management. Chandni Chowk suffers from multisectoral delays because redevelopment responsibilities are split across MCD, PWD and SRDC, leading to repeated coordination failures,” Gupta said.

Formed in 2008, SRDC was envisioned as a specialised heritage body tasked with bringing historical, academic and technical expertise together to guide conservation of buildings and coordinate restoration across the Walled City. But political turbulence gradually weakened it. For years, it functioned under former urban development minister Satyendra Jain, who was arrested in a money laundering case in May 2022. O officials said SRDC became “virtually defunct” after that.

Key heritage and civic interventions, including the second phase of the Chandni Chowk redevelopment, stalled amid administrative vacuum and political contestation.

SRDC’s most significant achievement remains the pedestrianisation and façade improvement of the 1.6km Chandni Chowk stretch from Lal Jain Mandir to Fatehpuri Masjid. The extension up to Jama Masjid never materialised, stalled by turf battles, shifting political equations and administrative paralysis.

Revamp plan

Despite Wednesday’s announcement, officials acknowledged that the renewed SRDC does not yet have a concrete roadmap. Key questions — whether it will restore crumbling havelis, revive stalled heritage circuits, create new museums, or complete the abandoned second phase of Chandni Chowk’s redevelopment — remain unanswered. Officials said these details will be finalised in the coming weeks.

Gupta said years of “gross negligence” by the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had allowed conditions in the area to worsen.

The AAP hit back, calling the Chandni Chowk redevelopment a flagship initiative of former CM Arvind Kejriwal and accusing the Centre of engineering administrative deadlock through the lieutenant governor.

“If CM Rekha Gupta is serious about losses to the exchequer, she should order an inquiry into this neglect. But she won’t, because the negligence was engineered by the BJP-led Central government,” AAP said in a statement.

During the meeting, MP Praveen Khandelwal said SRDC must be rebuilt “from the ground up,” even suggesting renaming it as ‘Indraprastha Redevelopment Corporation’ or ‘Chandni Chowk Redevelopment Corporation’. He proposed a coordination cell, multi-level parking, hawking and non-hawking zones, better e-rickshaw management, and heritage tourism circuits.

Urban Development Minister Ashish Sood said conservation architects must be involved to prevent irreversible loss of historic structures.

Gupta, acknowledging severe gaps in basic amenities, including a shortage of women’s toilets, directed immediate construction of new Pink Toilets and asked departments to submit a timebound action plan.

Sanjay Bhargava, president of the Chandni Chowk Sarv Vyapar Mandal, welcomed the move but said the area needs immediate attention. “The façade improvement work has been pending for years, and basic maintenance and sanitation have become major concerns. The market needs urgent repair and upkeep,” he said.

Experts, meanwhile, said the Walled City’s heritage character requires a distinct regulatory framework.

“Chandni Chowk — and all of Shahjahanabad — is both historic and designated as a special zone under the Delhi Master Plan. It needs its own bylaws, regulations and conservation strategies. A one-size-fits-all approach will not work,” said historian Swapna Liddle, author of Shahjahanabad: Mapping a Mughal City. “For instance, stilt parking with multiple floors may be feasible elsewhere, but not in Chandni Chowk’s dense bylanes and havelis with large courtyards.”