All of Delhi covets a DDA flat. Munirka or Rohini, Vikas Puri or Dilshad Garden, sized 110 sq m or 80, the concrete unit houses the aspiration of an entire city. A piece of affordable -- the term is relative -- real estate in a megapolis where a square feet of land can cost Rs 6 lakh.

No happily ever after here

If residents of DDA flats, like the ones at Kalkaji, want to get their crumbling buildings fixed, they have to act on their own resource. The land development body has no mechanism for accountablity, neither does itr charge a maintenance tax

That is why when the Delhi Development Authority -- the oldest and biggest dream merchant of hous- ing for the average Delhiite -- opened up 5,000 flats for allotment two years ago, 13 lakh people jumped in the fray.

Such demand -- not to mention desire -- overwhelms questions.

No wonder not many have asked what happens after you get your fairy- tale ending.

Does a Delhiite and her DDA flat live happily ever after?

We put the question to hundreds of residents across Delhi. These are the stories we were told: Of crumbling buildings. Of seepage-swollen walls and flooded toilets. Of nothing in the name of parking and other supporting infra- structure. And above all, of the com- plete absence of accountability.

The residents do not have any one to turn to for their complaints: the dream merchant, having sold, has lapsed into an indifferent slumber.

Over the next five days we take you inside people's homes and experiences at some of the well-known "colonies" built by the DDA ­ Delhi's largest land- owning and development agency.

Although the water tariff in the national Capital has been increased from January 1 this year, some colonies in Delhi continue to get contaminated drinking water, while some others are managing with irregular supply.

The residents of Kailash Colony have been receiving sewage-like water for the past two weeks. The residents say that the water has a bad smell and is not fit for any use.

"We have lodged several complaints about the poor quality of water with the Delhi Jal Board, but the board has failed to improve the situation," said S. Ravi, a resident of Kailash Colony, Block-19.

The residents said that DJB officials were trying to dismiss their complaints by saying that foul smell in water was due to excessive chlorine.

"It was only yesterday that some DJB officials visited the building, but even they left immediately without checking the water," he said.

Source: The Tribune Kailash Colony getting sewage-like water

Although the water tariff in the national Capital has been increased from January 1 this year, some colonies in Delhi continue to get contaminated drinking water, while some others are managing with irregular supply.

The residents of Kailash Colony have been receiving sewage-like water for the past two weeks. The residents say that the water has a bad smell and is not fit for any use.

"We have lodged several complaints about the poor quality of water with the Delhi Jal Board, but the board has failed to improve the situation," said S. Ravi, a resident of Kailash Colony, Block-19.

The residents said that DJB officials were trying to dismiss their complaints by saying that foul smell in water was due to excessive chlorine.

"It was only yesterday that some DJB officials visited the building, but even they left immediately without checking the water," he said.

Source: The Tribune Kailash Colony getting sewage-like water

"The government is spending crores of rupees to spread greenery across the city, but these anti-social elements are ruining the greenery for their own interests", say the residents. They even create an unhealthy environment in and around the colony. Two parks were provided for the colony residents, but a few years ago some anti-social elements came and broke the exit gate of one of the parks and started parking their vehicles there," the residents said.

"It is deplorable that outsiders and taxi drivers are using the colony park as a parking space. We have been provided with two parks but one of them has been encroached upon by these people. We had sent many letters to MCD officials and the police, but all have been in vain," said Atul Goyal, vice- president of the Karol Bagh Residents' Welfare Association.

There is a taxi stand in the park, where taxis are parked from 8 O'clock in the morning till late night. Some residents have also complained about some anti-social activities going on in the park when it is dark. "The park belongs to children specially, and as there are only two parks for the kids of Karol Bagh, we will fight till the end to bring this back to us at any cost," said Ramesh Mishra, one of the residents.

Residents told Cityplus that they had requested the Horticulture Department to hand over the park under the MoS scheme. "Fortunately, the department accepted our request and came to the colony for completing the formalities, but in the meantime these anti-social elements all of a sudden came and picked a quarrel with the residents and officials. Due to this, the civic authorities stopped the process midway," said M. Sharma, general secretary of the RWA.

When we contacted Rajpal Singh, deputy director, MCD Horticulture, he said, "I am not aware of the issue, but I will definitely check the matter."
But the area section officer, MCD Horticulture, Keshav Lal, said, "We have lodged FIR against these people and we are going to construct the main gate and maintain the green cover in the park soon."

A Metro feeder bus in Rithala. The Lack Of adequate number Of feeder buses has resulted in inconvenience to passenger

There are many like Bhambani who either avoid taking the Metro or have to spend a lot of time to commute to and from the station.

Another resident of Janakpuri Block C, Deepti Khanna (name changed on request), travels by the Metro to her Connaught Place office everyday.

One day she had to take a rickshaw home from the Janakpuri West Metro Station at 9.30 pm. "The driver told me the bus was only half full and would wait till there were more passengers," she said. "It was getting late, so I decided to take a rickshaw." On the way, 500 metre from Janakpuri Police Station, three men robbed her.

Irregularity of service, overcrowding and harassment are some of the major problem commuters, especially women, complain of on the feeder buses.

Though Delhi Metro claims an average daily ridership of more than 40,000 on feeder buses, the actual number of commuters using them are very few.

Source: Hindustan Times Feeder Service Or The Lack Of It

 From vegetables to fruits, milk products to grains and packaged foods, prices of all commodities have been going up since the beginning of the year. The mutton crisis recently also pushed chicken prices through the roof. Since January, the monthly budget for food items has gone up several fold.

A poor monsoon, strikes, inferior quality of seeds and consequent hoarding has seen prices shoot up by as much as 100% in case of some items.

While vegetables and grains were affected by disproportionate rainfall, the price of chicken shot up from Rs 90/kg in January, to Rs 160/kg in October due to shortage of mutton during the strike by butchers. Mutton itself, being in short supply, went for a premium, selling for Rs 250/kg as against its initial price of Rs 180/kg in January.

``Earlier, I was able to save at least half my salary while the other half was spent on food items. My husband took care of the other expenditure including house rent. Since the past few months, not only is my entire salary being spent on food but my husband too is pitching in with the food expenses. The worst is when we have guests,'' said Arundhati Chowdhury, a government official.

Source: Times Of India Living with 100% food price hike

Shooting Through the Roof : Growing price have put even essential commodities such as rice, pilses, sugar and cokking oils beyond the reach of the common man

A harvest of reasons has caused exorbitant increases in the prices of all varieties of food items — from fruits to vegetables to meat to cereals — over the past year.

And with the government moving in a suspiciously slow manner over tackling these issues, the common man’s pockets are not likely to breathe easy anytime soon.

Food inflation soared to a whopping 13.7 per cent in the last week of October, egged on particularly by the price spiral of potatoes and onions.

Potato prices have doubled during the oneyear period ending October 31, while onions have turned dearer by 42.6 per cent.

Pulses turned costlier by 22.73 per cent in the past year, while milk prices shot up by 10 per cent.

Similarly, the prices of rice and wheat have moved up by 16.6 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively, despite ample stocks in the Food Corporation of India ( FCI) godowns.

“ Simple vegetables like onions, potatoes and tomatoes have become so expensive.

What should I cook?” wondered Suneet Arora, a resident of Preet Vihar, as she went grocery shopping at a neighbourhood market on Thursday.

“ I have been reduced to buying cauliflower and cabbage, the only cheap vegetables left in the market.” The Arora family has also cut its daily milk intake of four full cream packets to three. “ This way, I am able to save Rs 28 daily, which goes into buying some more vegetables,” she added.

“ I prefer green leafy vegetables, such as spinach. It is cheaper, costing around Rs 10 per kg. So I buy them in bulk and make saag .” Even eggitarians have not been spared. The cost of dozen eggs has gone up from Rs 24 to Rs 48. “ Egg curry, half fry and boiled eggs is my family’s choice at least five times a week,” said Anandita Tarafdar, a Patparganj resident.

“ Cooking eggs used to be cheaper and nutritious compared to other vegetables. But now, even that has become costly. We are being fleeced by the market.” Retailers and market watchers give different reasons for the rise in prices of various commodities. The potato prices, for instance, are being blamed on floods in West Bengal and Karnataka, as well as hoarding by suppliers.

“ West Bengal supplies potatoes to the whole North- East.

But due to the floods there, the supply from the north states was diverted, causing shortage here,” said Brahm Yadav, who heads the Delhi agricultural marketing board.

Source: Mail Today The food price! Dear, Oh Dear

Badarpur Khadar with 150 brick and mud houses is the only village in the capital region with no civic amenities such as electricity, roads, drinking water supply, school, dispensary and panchayat, notes a recent report of deputy commissioner (Northeast) TC Nakh. Only a 45-minute drive from the heart of the capital, the village is accessible by a muddy and bumpy road.

A predominantly Muslim village, it doesn't even offer viable opportunities for earning a decent livelihood. The men and women here survive on working in the fields of Yamuna riverbed, making just about Rs 50 a day.

As the Times City team visited this village, cutting through a rising cloud of dust in the village, a group of children could be seen whiling away their time on the outskirts, for the nearest school is 7km away in Sabhapur village. ``Teenagers can cycle to the school but what about kids?'' fumes a villager, adding that the community wants to educate its children but has been left with no option. Some students walk it down to Meerpur, which is also about as far as Sabhapur. Then there are others who go to Loni in UP, a 10km haul. What this means is that most of the students in this village, forgotten by the State, are boys because ``girls can't travel so far for education''.

RURAL REALITY

Population | 621 people, including 200 children
Location | On eastern bank of Yamuna riverbed, about 12-15 km upstream from Wazirabad barrage and about 6-7 km from Sabhapur village, a bordering village
Houses | 150
Lok Sabha constituency | North-East
Assembly constituency | Karawal Nagar

Earlier, there was a glimmer of hope when a land was sanctioned for opening a school but nothing moved after that. Pointing towards a large plot of land, surrounded by a boundary wall, Shahdeen, a resident, said that the villagers themselves had got together to erect the boundary wall.

Source: Times Of India VILLAGE FALLS OFF DELHI MAP

Kacchi Khajuri is a predominantly Muslim locality in New Delhi, but like many other Muslim-dominated areas in the country, this too is highly neglected in terms of civic amenities, drinking water, roads, schools and hospitals.

People started living here in 1983. Most of them came, and are still coming, from Western Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They are mostly from labor classes or do small businesses. 25 years on, and they are living without pucca roads and drinking water facility - electricity reached here very recently. With no roads, there is no drainage system, making the area a big drain or pond of garbage in rainy season. Interestingly, the Kacchi Khajuri area, now populated by about 80,000 people (80-90% Muslims), is surrounded by deep long drain from one side and a pond from other side, yet there is no proper drainage system connecting the lanes and bylanes of the locality to the drain or pond.

"Labor class people are living here. Very few have their own businesses. Illiteracy is rampant. Government has shown little interest in this locality. Since the colony came into existence, there has been no drinking water facility. There is no pucca road either. With no drainage system, lanes and bylanes are littered with filth and garbage, causing various diseases among the residents," says Muhammad Abdullah, Imam, Jama Masjid Tayyeba - the oldest mosque of the colony.

To keep an area clean is certainly the responsibility of a civic body but how the residents as Muslims can shy away from their responsibility to keep their homes and the bylanes clean by sparing an area for garbage rather than letting a heap of garbage piling just in front of their home.

The government here has just two things that it can claim to be its own: a primary school for an area of 80,000 population, denoting how sincere the State is about education of the largest minority of the country; and a police station, clearly exposing the mindset of the government about the Muslim community they need no road, no drinking water, no ration shop and no hospital but they surely need a police station.

• Economic conditions
  
• Educational condition

President of Kautilya Apartments RWA, Brijesh Kumar says, "It has been more than one and half years since the road has been in such a condition. We have complained several times to the authorities but there is no action and the condition of the road is getting worse day by day".  

According to him DMRC officials have also been informed by them several times but they pass the buck to civic authorities.

As a matter of fact the metro station of Sector 14 is one of the busiest stations and people from Sectors 13, 14, Bharat Vihar, Kakraula and its surrounding areas are dependent on the station to reach their destinations.  

Nitin a daily commuter to Connaught Place says, "Every day my brother takes me to the station on bike from Kakraula and I leave him at a distance of 100 metres from the station because the road is not commutable. Heavy vehicles like water tanker to the residential areas frequently use the road and now the whole patch of 100 metre is completely broken."

Subject: Illegal Trespassing of Commercial Vehicles In Residential Colony

We, the most unfortunate residents of Delhi, wish to urge your esteem self that we have been the victims of Commercial Vehicles for last 4 years and the situation is worsening day by day.

We have complained so many times to the authority but every time they made an excuse. Now, it seems that the concerned department is dumb and deaf.

The root cause of the problem is the commercial vehicles which make a short cut from Lal Qua, Subzi Mandi towards the our residential area Singh Sabha Road, 10 & 33 Blocks, Shakti Nagar(Behind Amba Cinema). These vehicles include trucks, Tata-407, Tempos etc. Our lives have become a hell due to the pollution and noise created by these commercial vehicles.

Many complaints filed by us are still pending in the department. Specially in the evening, our children can not come out our houses due to the rush and congestion.

The barricades installed by our RWA have been removed by the police as their earnings came down. This is a matter of great concern that we the residents are being ignored by the department just to satisfy their greed.

This short cut is quite dangerous too as many fatal accidents occurred in the past. A electric pole has been hit and thrown down by a truck just few days back. This might cause many deaths but luckily nobody was nearby. The department is waiting for a disaster to occur.

We would like to request the authority to take quick action and stop this short-cut route for the commercial vehicles atleast.

Hoping for a positive response !!!!!!!!!!!

Ashok Saini
General Secretary, RWA, 33 Block, Shakti Nagar, Delhi-110007
9818130981, 9971977819

"Here it becomes hard to find the vehicle owners. Sometimes to teach them a lesson, we puncture the tyres of the vehicles," said a shopkeeper. He further added, "Some people extract illegal money from the vehicle owners, pretending to manage parking here. They get some duplicate receipts printed and take five or ten rupees from the vehicle owners. On questioning they give vague answers." Many rickshaw-pullers have also occupied this place, treating it to be a rickshaw stand.

Beside all this, many encroachments have also started growing here slowly. Vendors put their stalls in the evening here and lot of people gather around them. "There is no pedestrian path available on this road. So pedestrians are bound to walk on the road and hinder smooth movement of vehicles. Senior citizens are very badly affected," said Anand Dubey, a daily commuter.

Cranes do come to tow away the vehicles parked in unauthorised parking but it happens once in a blue moon and mostly they patrol on main Vikas Marg. When Cityplus spoke to Traffic in-charge East Delhi Vikas Marg, Bajrang Lal, he said, "We keep extra vigil on areas where there are unauthorised parkings."

ENCROACHMENTS
According to the residents, on any given day, about 20 buses are parked on the internal roads of the colony. As a result, very little space is left for the vehicles to pass. Some of these buses are even parked at the corner of theroad,blockingthecommuters' view of the main road.This heightens the possibilities of accidents.

"Imagine our plight, as these buses, mostly belonging to a publicschool,areparkedontheinternal roads of our colony. Besides the buses, cycle rickshaws, taxis and private vehicles are parked on both sides of the road further hindering the traffic movement.

We have reported the matter to various traffic officials but so far, leave aside addressing our concerns, no one has even bothered to respond to our complaints. In our letters to the traffic police officers we have even pointed out the Delhi High Court's ruling that the schools buses will not be parked on the roads. Still, we are facing problems," informs Navin Goel, a resident.

Source: Hindustan Times Nothing Is In Order In This Colony "Maurya Enclave"

Subject: Illegal Trespassing of Commercial Vehicles In Residential Colony

We, the most unfortunate residents of Delhi, wish to urge your esteemself that we have been the victims of Commercial Vehicles for last 4 years and the situation is worsening day by day. We have complained so many times to the authority but every time they made an excuse. Now, it seems that the concerned department is dumb and deaf. The root cause of the problem is the commercial vehicles which make a short cut from Lal Qua, Subzi Mandi towards the our residential area Singh Sabha Road, 10 & 33 Blocks, Shakti Nagar(Behind Amba Cinema). These vehicles include trucks, Tata-407, Tempos etc. Our lives have become a hell due to the pollution and noise created by these commercial vehicles. Many complaints filed by us are still pending in the department. Specially in the evening, our children can not come out our houses due to the rush and congestion. The barricades installed by our RWA have been removed by the police as their earnings came down. This is a matter of great concern that we the residents are being ignored by the department just to satisfy their greed. This short cut is quite dangerous too as many fatal accidents occurred in the past. A electric pole has been hit and thrown down by a truck just few days back. This might cause many deaths but luckily nobody was nearby. The department is waiting for a disaster to occur.
We would like to request the authority to take quick action and stop this short-cut route for the commercial vehicles atleast.

Hoping for a positive response !!!!!!!!!!!

Parking has emerged as one of the main problems of the area and needs urgent attention. Two big markets - Main Vikas Marg Market and Shakarpur Market comprise thousands of shops but due to lack of adequate parking space the area always remain chaotic. This also affects the vehicular movement. Moreover, single residential plots are being converted into multistoried buildings, which is one of the main reasons behind the problem.

Says Harish Gola, general secretary, Residents' Welfare Association, U Block, "Parking problem has worsened with every passing day. We have requested the area MLA and authorities to provide a multistoried parking facility on the lines of Mahavir Park at Gandhi Nagar, which would help to keep the main roads and colony roads chaos free." According to the residents both Vikas Marg and Mother Dairy road have been declared commercial roads but they do not have the basic facilities in keeping with that status.

Shopkeepers and colony residents are demanding that a vacant plot of land belonging to the Delhi Development Authority in the area be converted into a parking lot.

Says Baba S. P. Singh, vice president, new Vikas Marg Trader Association, "It is strange thatCommonwealthGames2010, will be held just one or one-anda-half km away from our colony.
A solution to traffic jams and haphazardly parked vehicles is necessary. Government should positively think about it and come out with a concrete solution."

The residents complain that at night haphazardly parked vehicles block the entire stretch and nobody can even cross the road.