DDA Razes Down Trees – The Courts Razes Down DDA’s Credibility And Pride

Delhi Development Authority, DDA, are never too far away from controversies. This time they were whacked on their knuckles by none other than the highest court of the country. Imagine an institution’s vice chairman being issued a criminal contempt notice. DDA allowed extensive felling of trees in the Southern Ridge area to construct a road. The vice chairman apparently filed a misleading affidavit before the courts. Besides calling out the high official, another good part of the judgment was that the court mandated planting of 100 new trees for each tree felled by DDA.

Dilliwalahs couldn’t stop smiling with glee when the court stated that ‘it cannot trust DDA now’.  Not 1 or 2 but as many as 642 trees were cut and the tree felling in the area went on for 10 days. Chopping any tree in the ridge area without court permission has been prohibited by a 1995 order.

Mercifully the court instructed DDA to minimise tree felling while carrying out public works. All this hasn’t done much for the sagging image of DDA which in the minds of some young Dilliwalahs is a fuddy-duddy authority in desperate need to modernise its outlook.