MCD action continues after Satya Niketan tragedy: 397 properties face demolition in 13 days
MCD data shows that between September 6 and 18, the civic body carried out demolition at 397 properties and sealed 152 properties.
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has stepped up its action against unauthorised and unsafe buildings in the national capital, continuing its crackdown following the deadly collapse of a building housing a paying guest (PG) facility in the Satya Niketan area.

MCD data shows that between September 6 and 18, the civic body carried out demolition at 397 properties and sealed 152 properties. During the same period, it issued 310 show-cause notices for unauthorised construction, 178 sealing show-cause notices and 80 demolition orders.
On September 18 alone, MCD carried out demolition at 41 properties, sealed 10 properties, issued 42 show-cause notices for unauthorised construction, 44 sealing show-cause notices and seven demolition orders.
The September 6 collapse of a five-storey building in Satya Niketan killed at least seven people, including five students. MCD subsequently announced a series of steps, including the suspension of officials and a survey of PG facilities, amid criticism from opposition parties.
The MCD crackdown against unauthorised construction had begun before the PG collapse, following recent incidents in Saket and Malviya Nagar. The campaign intensified after the Satya Niketan tragedy.
Between June 1 and September 3, the civic body had carried out demolition at 983 properties, sealed 464 properties, issued 1,516 show-cause notices for unauthorised construction and 708 sealing show-cause notices, and issued 726 demolition orders.
MCD has also conducted a three-month survey of residential areas to identify commercial misuse of residential properties. Around 300,000 properties across 404 colonies and 168 wards have been surveyed.
The survey identified more than 8,000 cases of commercial activity in residential areas, with the civic body initiating action against activities considered impermissible under the Master Plan for Delhi. Around 30-40 properties had already been sealed, while action against several others was at various stages.
ABOUT THE AUTHORShishir GuptaShishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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