Govt of India Asks Delhi Govt to Review FAR Construction to Stop Coronavirus
The Government of India has asked the Delhi Government to study and review the effect of floor area ratio (FAR) construction in housing societies on the worsening coronavirus (COVID-19) situation in Delhi.
With the possibility of banning the FAR construction, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (Delhi Division), Government of India, has urged the Chief Secretary, Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, to examine if FAR construction could be stopped to stop the spread of coronavirus in the city.
Although the Delhi Government has already stopped the construction during the ongoing lockdown period, this is an inadequate measure because construction has been identified as a major cause of spreading the coronavirus disease among communities. And non-essential construction projects are being stopped all over the world to check the coronavirus contagion.
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) has become a pandemic disease and the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared coronavirus a public health emergency. Therefore, the Delhi Government should take additional steps to deal with coronavirus so that the people of Delhi could be saved from this deadly disease.
The risk of coronavirus is particularly increasing in Delhi’s Cooperative Group Housing Societies (CGHS) where long-term construction projects under the dubious floor area ratio (FAR) scheme are running.
In these housing societies, hundreds of laborers / construction workers come daily from different parts of the city. There is a strong likelihood that these workers can bring coronavirus to these housing complexes and spread the disease among hundreds of thousands of residents.
Moreover, coronavirus can also enter the houses through the moist construction dust that is spreading in the housing societies as well as the surrounding areas. It is learnt that residents in many group housing complexes are scared as there are suspected cases of coronavirus deaths in the housing complexes of Delhi. But the government is deliberately hiding the facts about coronavirus cases and deaths.
While the FAR construction is already spreading lethal dust and noise pollution in the housing societies, now the additional risk of coronavirus will endanger the lives of men, women, children, and particularly senior citizens who live in these societies. So, the residents who want to save human lives must oppose and stop FAR construction in their housing societies.
While the FAR construction is already stopped during the lockdown period, it is expected that the government will soon stop all FAR projects in the next couple of weeks. Long-term construction and repair work in occupied housing societies is a major cause of increasing coronavirus in India’s capital New Delhi.
You can download and study the research report on the effect of construction on the coronavirus disease. The research report is also given below in the digital format.
