Raze the weakest towers for now, say Signature residents

The resident welfare association (RWA) of Signature View Apartment (SVA) in northwest Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar met officials from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on Saturday and asked for at least two towers that are structurally the weakest to be immediately dismantled and that the body begin paying rent to the residents of those towers.

A senior DDA official, requesting anonymity, said that the body has asked the residents to submit their proposal to vacate the weaker towers and the authority will try to decide at the earliest.

“We have been asking all residents to vacate the premises at the earliest as it is unsafe to continue to live there. We can start rent from tomorrow if all residents vacate today, but if some residents don’t shift out, it defeats our purpose of quickly dismantling and reconstructing the building,” said the official.

According to an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) report from last year, the society with 12 towers was found to be structurally weak, following which lieutenant governor VK Saxena ordered that it be immediately vacated and dismantled. DDA had earlier given time till November 30 for all residents to evacuate the society. However, this was put on hold after a group of nine residents approached the Delhi high court which asked DDA to halt the evacuation till the next date of hearing in February.