Make more room

lutyens Bungalow Zone, one of the greenest areas in New Delhi, should be razed and replaced by multi-storey apartments, says Union urban affairs minister Ram Jethmalani. The government has constituted a three-member panel to study and recommend a viable plan of action within two months.

Jethmalani says that the zone is a low density area, which has an excellent infrastructure to take additional load. At the same time, Jethmalani feels that 100 bungalows could be retained as a show-piece of that era.

While some urban planners have lauded this move, conservationist and environmentalists are not of the same view. Lutyens Delhi is a part of out heritage and it should be conserved, said Nalini Thakur a conservationist from the School of Planning and Architecture. Moreover, if you build flats, you create more population, more traffic, more roads and pollution in one of the very few green areas of the city, she said.