Cafés, Pubs & Shops: Living Spaces Choked In City

South Delhi residents irked as commercial outlets multiply & gobble up neighbourhoods, flouting land-use regulations.

- Chayyanika Nigam

THE mushrooming of commercial spaces – crowded bars, fancy gyms, designer studios and tony coffee shops – in South Delhi’s Defence Colony, Greater Kailash and Lajpat Nagar is throwing the lives of its residents into disarray.

From encroached roads and illegal parking to overcrowding to rowdyism during the night hours – there is no end to the woes of people living in these colonies.

Residents complained to Mail Today about parking problems, drunken brawls and loud music. The owners of the shops, however, contend they have procured proper licences for their commercial activity.

ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

The problem has its genesis in the unbridled expansion of commercial spaces in the Capital with blatant disregard for building bylaws over the last two decades – leaving the residential areas starved of open spaces. Many buildings in Delhi’s upscale colonies are used for dual purposes, with a shopping outlet on the ground and first floor and residential on the second. ‘Conversion Charges’ are paid as tax for different land-use. While in most cases the buildings have managed to change the land-use, in others, rules are flouted. And no one notices anything until the spaces are encroached upon.

Over time, the land-use of several roads and localities has been changed through government orders and in many cases, like these neighbourhoods, even the residents are unaware of it.

Kokila Rangachari, 71, who stays with her husband on the second floor of a building in Dblock, Defence Colony, has been fighting the increasing commercialisation of the locality over the past few years. She has written several letters to municipal authorities so that she can lead a peaceful life in the house that belongs to her father.

With commercialisation, it is the residents who suffer