Hollow promise: Notice board on a site meant for local shopping centre
Residents of Sector 13, 14, 16 and 17 of Dwarka are yearning for a local shopping centre (LSC) for long. In the absence of local market in their area, they have to travel at least 4 km for their daily needs which both costly and time consuming.
These sectors are deprived of a local market since their inception. Hence, the residents are perennially dependent on far off markets in Aashirvad Chowk or Sector 6/10 for almost all their daily needs.
“Pockets like Netaji Subhash Apartments, Sector 13, Metro View Apartments of Sector 13, Rosewood Apartments Sector 13, Peepal Apartments, Sector 17, Aashirvad Apartments, Sector 16, Om Apartments, Sector 14, Kautilya Apartments, Sector 14 etc. are located here. Though thousands of residents who live in here, not a single shopping centre came up to cater to their day-today needs. It is high time authorities developed a LSC here like other sectors,” said K Vahid Diwan, president of Kautilya Apartments, Sector 14.
In fact, LSCs were planned for the aforementioned sectors when the sub city was at development stage. Even lands were earmarked for the purpose at various locations. But there is no trace of development on any of these plots. However, each of these plots has a notice board installed on it declaring the site as LSC (local shopping centre) or HAF (housing area facilities) .
President of Metro View Apartments Residents Welfare Association, Sector 13 Pocket B, SR Dogra, said, “A vacant plot beside our society has a HAF sign board installed on it, while another in the backyard has a sign reading “commercial centre project”. But there is no progress on either even as we have been waiting for any such facility for more than a decade now.”
He informed that the RWA has written several letters to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in this regard. But nothing has come of it.
A resident lamented that with no shopping facility available in the locality, they have no option but travel to markets in Ashirvad Chowk, Sectors 6, 10 or Rajapuri incurring a fair amount of expenses on the fares. Besides, frequent visits to these far off places for each household need are quite time consuming.
Seema Sharma, a resident of Sector 16, said, “Visit to markets in Ashirvad Chowk is a costly affair. With no public transport available we travel by cycle- battery- or auto-rickshaws which charge Rs 50-70 for one side. Added to the purchases we make, the visits are quite an expensive proposition.”
