DDA offering ruins in the name of high-end flats at Vasant Kunj

Broken tiles, heaps of cement and dug up soil, broken glass, protruding rods and open ditches welcome you as you enter the flats of Yamuna block in Vasant Kunj's sector D-6. Sidhartha Roy reports.

Broken tiles, heaps of cement and dug up soil, broken glass, protruding rods and open ditches welcome you as you enter the flats of Yamuna block in Vasant Kunj's sector D-6.

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The scene inside the 'furnished flats' is no better - thick dust and rubble, plastic sheets and foam covers strewn around, dangling wires, broken glass, dirty and stained furniture and gaping holes in the corridors of the multi-storey building.

The 2,709 flats in Vasant Kunj's D-6 were built by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to house foreign officials and technicians visiting Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. The event is long over but the construction of many of these flats is not.

DDA admits that flats in the Ganga block of this sector are not ready and allottees of these flats, who had got them in the 2010 housing scheme, haven't got the demand letters. The fate of those allottees, who have got flats in the neighbouring Yamuna block, is worse. They have paid for the flats and have started paying EMIs for bank loans but their flats are not in a livable condition.

The flats in sector D-6 were sold at premium rates because these are furnished. The furniture, however, is in a terrible state and is not usable.

"What would I do with this dirty and broken furniture that has been lying here for past two years? Some furniture is missing too as my flat has five dining chairs but there is no dining table around," said another allottee.

DDA Vice Chairman Sanjay Srivastava has said that work would completed as early as possible at all such flats in areas such as Mukherjee Nagar, Vasant Kunj D-6 and Dwarka 18-B, where allottees have paid the whole amount but flats are not ready to move in.