NEW DELHI, January 25: On January 14, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi demolished the Vasant Vihar Club which encroached upon an MCD park. The property, which was spread over an area of 1.8 acres, was valued at Rs 8 crore.``For the past 10 to 12 years, the MCD chose to ignore the encroachment. All of a sudden, they remembered that this (park) existed and struck a plan to demolish the club without even giving us a chance to work out an agreement,'' said a member of the club. The club had been served with a notice in September. Official sources say that the encroachment had earlier been ignored because of the `interference of certain influential people residing in that area'. Club members, however, maintain that there had been a verbal agreement with an earlier councillor to utilise the empty land on the lines of the Panchsheel Club which had also `converted' an MCD park into game courts.``We were fully aware that we were encroaching on MCD land. This demolition is as much our fault, but as far as we knew, it was done with an understanding, albeit verbal,'' said the B R Kapur, president of the club.According to Kamal Singh Meena, an official working on this project, the encroachment was earlier ignored because it was reportedly being used for `community activities' and it was only recently that the department came to know that the grounds were being used for commercial purposes.``The MCD has no problem if the residents do up the park and allow the access to all others, but the club had restricted its use to only its members and was allegedly charging a high fee,'' Meena alleged.According to Kapur, the membership fee of the club is Rs one lakh and thereafter a `nominal fee' of Rs 150 was charged from the members for the use of the tennis and badminton courts. Says club president: ``The MCD destroyed everything. I told officials that they could take the park over, and not destroy the pillars, the courts, the nets and the wires that were installed there''.
