Spending lakhs to keep in shape

They still retain the original pale yellow colour but the DDA flats in south Delhi’s Masjid Moth beam in comparison to their cousins in other parts of the city. And DDA has nothing to do with it, reports Sidhartha Roy.

They still retain the original pale yellow colour but the DDA flats in south Delhi’s Masjid Moth beam in comparison to their cousins in other parts of the city. And DDA has nothing to do with it.

HT Image

The construction quality of the flats here is as bad as any other DDA flat but the frequent repairing and maintenance by residents have ensured that the buildings haven’t started crumbling.

Keeping the flats, built more than 30 years ago, in the pink of health is a daily struggle for their inhabitants.

“We have to keep on doing some repair work or other all the time. DDA’s work is just not up to the mark,” said Rachna Bhargava (38), a resident. “The walls are tilted, the plaster keeps cracking, pipes are corroded and seepage keeps destroying the interiors.”

“We spend up to Rs. 40,000 every two years just for painting the exteriors of the building. A major renovation work like replacing drain pipes costs more than a lakh,” said Ranju Minhas of the Masjid Moth RWA.

Minhas said many residents have completely scrapped the cement from exterior walls and plastered them again. “Without such vigorous maintenance, the buildings would have just fallen down by now,” says Minhas.

When Rajkumar Kadam (44), who is working with a Public Sector Undertaking, bought a second floor flat in Masjid Moth last year, he had no idea about the huge expense he would have to incur just to make the flat livable.

“The original owner of the flat had already spent Rs. 50,000 on Plaster of Paris before we moved in. However, I had to renovate the flat again and it cost me Rs four lakh,” says Kadam.

The quality of cement used by DDA is so bad, Kadam says, that nails go inside them like a hot knife through butter. The staircase that leads to Kadam’s third floor flat is in a bad condition but he is not in a position to repair them. “That is going to set me back by a few lakhs again and I will take up its repair after March only.”