Civic body to give away 15,000 properties, save on crores of rupees

The cash-starved MCD has finally woken up from its long slumber, after spending close to Rs 16 crore on maintaining several properties in the city for the last eight years.

The cash-starved Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has finally woken up from its long slumber, after spending close to Rs 16 crore on maintaining several properties in the city for the last eight years.

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The civic agency has now decided to transfer the ownership of these properties, which come under its Slum Department, to the original allottees.

There are a total of 15,000 such properties in the city. They occupants have been living there since the time
of partition.

The MCD has garnered only Rs. 3 crore as rent from these properties.

“These properties were allotted to the migrants on a nominal charge at the time of partition in 1947 and they have continued to be on rental basis for the last 62 years. We have been incurring huge losses due to the maintenance of these properties and have decided to hand it over the allottees after fixing a set rate,” said Vijendra Gupta, chairman of the MCD’s standing committee.

The civic agency has further stated that the allottees belong to the poorer section of society and hence they are also not able to maintain the property properly but if they have ownership, they could find means for its upkeep.

The MCD had also conducted a survey in 2008 to ascertain the state of those properties and found that the structures of 12 properties were dangerously weak.

On an average the civic agency spends Rs 2 crore on the maintenance of these properties every year.