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MCD demolishes 67 properties, seals 9 in 2 days after Satya Niketan PG collapse

The civic body stepped up action on September 11 and 12, sealing the properties and taking other enforcement measures.

Updated on: Sep 12, 2026, 23:00:19 IST
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The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) demolished 67 properties and sealed nine others over two days as part of its ongoing crackdown on unauthorised construction following the Satya Niketan tragedy.

A five-storey building that housed a PG collapsed in Delhi's Satya Niketan area, killing at least seven people, most of them students. (HT Photo/ Vipin Kumar)
A five-storey building that housed a PG collapsed in Delhi's Satya Niketan area, killing at least seven people, most of them students. (HT Photo/ Vipin Kumar)

The civic body stepped up action on September 11 and 12, sealing the properties and taking other enforcement measures. It also issued show-cause notices to 35 properties and demolition orders for four properties over the past couple of days.

The action against property misuse and dangerous structures comes amid an intensified safety assessment drive after a five-storey building that housed a PG collapsed in Delhi's Satya Niketan area, killing at least seven people, most of them students.

HT had reported earlier this week that MCD officials were planning a large-scale survey of PG facilities in the cities and the number of occupants staying there. Following this, the civic body had on Tuesday this week carried out a large-scale demolition drive against unauthorised and unsafe buildings. 35 buildings were demolished across 12 MCD zones in the action, according to an earlier HT report.

Also Read | MCD suspends 3 building department engineers after Satya Niketan PG collapse

Civic body's survey of PG buildings under safety assessment driver

The MCD had surveyed over 1,200 paying guest (PG) buildings this week as part of its safety assessment drive. Among the structures surveyed, at least three were found to be dangerous, while 39 required minor repairs and nine needed major repairs, officials said on Wednesday.

The civic body had also separately identified 26 framed structures above G+4 floors for close monitoring as they may be vulnerable. The survey had continued on Thursday.

MCD had stepped up action against unauthorised construction and misuse of premises after recent incidents in Saket and Malviya Nagar.

The civic body had, between June 1 and September 3, 2026, carried out demolition at 983 properties, sealed 464 properties, issued 1,516 show-cause notices for unauthorised construction and 708 sealing show-cause notices. It had issued 726 demolition orders.

MCD also conducted a three-month survey of residential areas to identify commercial misuse of residential premises, surveying around 300,000 properties across 404 colonies and 168 wards.

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta

Shishir 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.

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