In the light of the surge in COVID patients, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has agreed to allot vacant land to hospitals and medical institutions to temporarily set up COVID care infrastructure.
As reported by a national daily, the DDA officials said that the decision came after receiving recurring requests from several facilities. A proposal for the same was tabled in front of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal who gave a green signal to it. Following this, the proposal was tabled in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and relaxations in the rules were also requested. Finally, the Ministry accepted the proposal with some conditions.
According to a senior DDA official, the land could be allotted to government institutions as per the current policy, however, allotting land to private hospitals need relaxations in the current policy.
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Therefore, following the approval; from the Ministry with certain relaxations in the present policy, the development body decided to allot plots with a license of six months to the private hospitals for temporarily setting up COVID care centres. For this, the private hospitals will have to pay subsidised charges. Hence, DDA decided to provide community halls and vacant land parcels for setting up COVID care infrastructure. These halls have been kept open to government organisations, non-government organisations, institutions, resident welfare associations, among others.
“We are getting regular requests for allotment of community halls from various authorities. Hence, we have identified 46 community halls across Delhi that we can provide on request,” the senior DDA official said.
