Encroachment foils bid to develop Novelty Cinema

A proposed commercial centre that was supposed to fetch crores in revenue for MCD has fallen prey to encroachment.

A proposed commercial centre that was supposed to fetch crores in revenue for MCD has fallen prey to encroachment.

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Such is the scale of land grab near Novelty Cinema in the Walled City, that the contractor who was supposed to execute a makeover left work midway.

Taking stock of the situation, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Wednesday decided that it needs to take adequate action to free the theatre, which was sealed in 2007 for redevelopment, from the “land mafia”. The issue was raised at the MCD Standing Committee meeting.

Now, the civic agency has directed the city zone deputy commissioner to remove the encroachment at the earliest. The councillors also raised the issue of other buildings that are currently lying unused with the MCD, including Shehnai Banquet Hall on Aruna Asaf Ali Road and Cups and Saucer restaurant on Minto Road.

If these properties are rented out, MCD could earn lakhs of rupees as license fee, councillors said.

The Standing Committee also demanded that MCD commissioner KS Mehra should focus on tendering the buildings so that the civic body can generate revenue.

They also asked him to remove encroachments from Novelty Cinema so that the 2,500-square-metre property can be redeveloped.

The buildings are presently under the MCD’s Renumerative Project Cell which had earlier floated tenders to rent them out. While Novelty Cinema is to be developed on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis, Shehnai Banquet Hall and Cups and Saucers restaurant are supposed to be let out after a tendering process.

MCD councillors have also asked the MCD commissioner to convene a special meeting to discuss the future of Town Hall, the present headquarter of MCD that will be vacated in a few weeks when all officials and workers are transferred to the Civic Centre on Minto
Road.