AAP alleges North MCD building 'illegal parking lot' on school land

New Delhi: AAP MLA Vishesh Ravi on Monday said that the MCD is planning to build an illegal parking and commercial complex on 4,115 square metres of school land on Bank Street in Karol Bagh.

Ravi also said that BJP-ruled MCD shut the school down in 2019 and then planned a parking project in connivance with the private mafia. "Such projects can be started on this land only after the DDA changes its land use but the MCD put out the tender without changing its land use. Prior to the pandemic, at least 800 children attended that school, however, the students also left after BJP created a lack of teachers. Children from low-income families attend government schools to educate themselves; if schools are closed in this manner, where will they go?" the AAP MLA asks.

According to Ashok Dutta, Treasurer of Samman NGO, in the classrooms of MCD school, not children, but vehicles are being parked even before the tender is passed. A three-story commercial complex will be built inside the school, with 700 vehicles parking there.

Bhagwati Market president Harjit Singh said, "We have shops outside the school but on the morning of November 2021, the MCD closed all 45 shops and asked us to go somewhere else. Our situation was already terrible due to the pandemic but the MCD's greed has stolen our bread today."

The North MCD already has three parking spots available at Karol Bagh — one in Shastri Park, one on Pusa Road, and another nearby.