Legalising unauthorised colonies creates problems: HC

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday observed that legalising unauthorised colonies has not only "emboldened" the buyers of acquired land and encroachers but also created manifold problems of environmental degradation and traffic bottlenecks. Justice Manmohan also made a distinction between an unauthorised colony and a "jhuggi-jhopri" (slum) cluster. It dismissed a plea filed by the Residents Welfare Association (RWA) of Utsav Vihar, one of the unauthorised colonies in Delhi, seeking to restrain the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) from evicting colony members for its proposed 100-metre road. The court said the people, who have cut these unauthorised colonies, have neither paid full development charges to the civic authorities nor provided proper civic facilities. The court said: "The people, who have cut these unauthorised colonies, have neither paid full development charges to the civic authorities nor provided proper civic facilities like roads, sewerage, drainage, water and electricity facilities, and as a consequence, diseases like malaria, diarrhoea and tuberculosis are common in Delhi." It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to provide adequate and proper sewage, drainage and roads after an unplanned colony has been constructed and occupied, the court said. "After all, if construction has been carried out in a haphazard manner without adhering to any scientific norms like grid pattern and/or there is not enough vacant land available, how can a road with adequate width be subsequently provided?" it added. Part of the Utsav Vihar colony falls within the alignment of the roads proposed by the DDA, but the RWA had opposed it and moved the high court.-Agency