'Citizens must speak up to raise civic consciousness'

NEW DELHI: Digitisation of land records can help in reclaiming illegally encroached footpaths in Delhi, but eminent citizens also need to speak up and cooperate with the government in awakening civic consciousness of citizens, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri has said.

"Hawkers have encroached the footpaths. If not hawkers, then the residents and colonies have encroached on them," replied the Minister to a query on the fast disappearing footpaths across Indian cities and towns at a special lecture "2022: The India We Seek", organised jointly by the Society for Policy Studies and India Habitat Centre on Thursday evening.

"Encroachment (squatting) is happening in the best of residential colonies. Everybody wants to come, everybody wants to encroach. To awaken the civic consciousness, I would like eminent citizens to come up, write about it and shame them," said the Minister, a former top diplomat, who has been India's Permanent Representative at the United Nations, on the concern that there is no place to walk in the city.

"The emphasis of current policy is non-motorised transport, footpaths, cycle tracks, etc. etc," he said on the government's vision for Smart Cities that is in the pipeline.

Puri said the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has no clue about how much land they have as their land has been encroached and their land records are yet to be digitised. "They didn't want to be digitised because it suited a lot of people, but one of my most satisfying moments has been that I have got the DDA float a tender for its digitisation," he said.