Shalimar Bagh multi-layer underground parking lot

In September 2008, residents of Shalimar Bagh were asked to choose between neighbourhood park ‘Shiv Vatika’ and a multi-level car parking lot to be built under the green area.

The site was one of the 25 identified by the MCD for a Rs 550-crore project to construct underground parking lots near markets.

The residents chose the park and swore to take on the MCD in the High Court.   

“The DDA and MCD are determined to raze the park,” stated the residents’ petition in the High Court. They made the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the MCD parties in the litigation.

The parking project became a non-starter as soon as the hearings began, and now the MCD cannot wait any longer. “After over a year of litigation, we decided to wait no further,” said senior MCD counsel Ajay Arora. “We cancelled the Shalimar Bagh parking lot and will relocate it, even though the matter is still pending before the court.”

While residents believe the “danger” has passed, their lawyer Sanjeev Sharma is playing it safe.

“We were informed that the MCD, in a meeting of the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority on August 1, communicated its decision to shift the proposed parking facility to some other site,” Sharma said. “But the MCD is yet to give a formal statement in court in this regard.”

The RWA Prabhavi, which represents 3,000 residents of blocks AN and AM, claim the government owed three square metres of green area to each person, with one park spanning over at least 1.5 hectare. They fear a parking lot — an underground one at that — would cost the lives of at least a hundred full-grown trees.

... contd.