A 7-YO Girl Has Saved A Children's Park From DDA That Was Building A Community Centre On It

A seven-year-old girl's anguished a plea against the Delhi Development Authority's plan to raze a 30-year-old children's park in her neighbourhood elicited a strong response from the Delhi high court.

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A bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar acted on the petition of Navya Singh and immediately stayed DDA's decision to convert a park in Rohini Sector 8 into a community centre.

"DDA cannot convert a park into a construction (sic).You are playing with taxpayers' money. Imagine if your officer's house is converted into a community hall or a wedding centre? Parks are parks. Do not turn them into community centres."

It also sought an explanation from all authorities on why the Hanuman Mandir park, where DDA invested money as late as March this year to start an open gym, is the only place it could find to build a community centre and issued a notice to the lieutenant-governor and the North Delhi Municipal Corporation on a plea seeking to restrain them from "destroying the park".

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Seeking complete details, including objections put on record before DDA by local residents, the bench asked it to file an affidavit "with regard to details of the people who can be accommodated if the community centre is built at the park, number of vehicles that can be parked and projections of garbage generated and provisions made for collection and disposal of garbage on account of use of the community centre, including the collection system and its disposal".

The court also sought details of the amount spent on the construction of the open gym and an explanation from DDA on why it became necessary to construct the community centre in that park.

Justify why is it necessary (sic)," the bench observed, asking the authority to inform it of the "distance between the present proposed construction and the existing community centre, known as Maharaja Agrasen Bhawan, Sector 8, Rohini, New Delhi, allotted on DDA land and reasons for construction of this community centre, justification as to why the community centre is needed more than the community park."

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"The park in question is also shown as a park in the layout of Rohini Sector 8 prepared by DDA more than 30 years ago, and since then this park was used by [the] public at large," Navya's plea, filed through her advocate father Dheeraj Kumar Singh, submits.

It adds that DDA's decision is "a clear-cut example of poor planning and an example of wastage of public money".

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Navya complained that the authorities "are slowly and steadily converting the green belt park of Rohini Sector 8 into a concrete jungle by reducing the area of the parks in the vicinity.

It is pertinent to mention here that the more than 30% of DDA's Hanuman Mandir Park Sector 8 is already encroached [on] by some people and DDA allowed a huge Reliance Jio Mobile tower in the Hanuman Mandir Park Sector 8 by removing several children's playing equipments (sic)."

The petition claims that residents of the locality, more so children, are severely affected and aggrieved by the "illegal and arbitrary decision" of DDA. It also says that a vacant plot of DDA land is available in the area which was planned for community services yet the agency decided to destroy the park.