JOIN USThe 20-year-old Sarai Kale Khan inter-state bus terminal near the Yamuna appears to be illegal in government records as it stands on a piece of land meant for green belt.
The transport department realised this while doing the ground work for the terminal’s redevelopment and immediately brought it to the notice of the land owning agency.
“The land owning agency has started the work to change the land use in their records, so that the terminal gets legitimacy,” said a transport department official.
He said the Delhi Development Authority allotted land for the terminal two decades ago but did not change the land use of its plot which is barely a few hundred metres from the Yamuna bank.
The terminal, which is used by buses connecting the city with the Faridabad, Mathura, Palwal and Agra, was built in 1993.
The anomaly about its illegal land use came to light when the transport department got down to turning into a swanky public facility, like the Kashmere Gate bus terminal.
An official said when we prepared the new design, we found out that pulling down the existing structure and building multi-storey one in its place could invite trouble, including litigation.
“One civic agency even put a question mark on its plans and refused to give its clearance,” he said.
‘Moving things forward’
The discussion with the land owning agency to change the land use of the plot has been stuck for months but we hope things would move forward soon, he said.
“A proposal for the land use has been sent by the land owning agency to the Union urban development ministry,” he said.
It was due to South Municipal Corporation’s insistence for a land use change that forced the Delhi government to rush to the central government for help.
The proposed multi-storey building will fall in the air corridor used by planes to approach the Delhi airport but officials said even the Airports Authority of India has given its approval to raise the height of the bus terminal’s structure, said an official.