The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has served closure notices to at least 30 guest houses in Mahipalpur, Delhi’s largest hotel hub after central Delhi’s Paharganj, in the last 10-15 days.

Public health department (PWD) officials said these facilities, which serve as short resting points for people flying out of the nearby Indira Gandhi International Airport, face roads less than six metres in width and hence violate Master Plan of Delhi (MPD)-2021 norms.

These places are a major safety hazard as emergency vehicles would find it difficult to enter roads narrower than six metres and evacuation would be difficult if a fire breaks out, officials said.

The Delhi Laws (Special Provision) Act also does not apply to these facilities as they came up after 2006 when the Act came into existence. The Act provides protection to guest houses in congested places such as Karol Bagh and Paharganj.

These guest houses also do not have health trade licences issued by the municipal corporations.

The civic agency decided to shut them in the wake of the fire tragedy in Karol Bagh’s Hotel Arpit Palace where 17 people died last month.

“A meeting was held by the principal secretary, urban development, on March 8 regarding measures to avoid any rerun of the Arpit Palace fire. It was brought to his notice that many guest houses are running illegally in Mahipalpur and must be closed. Hence, we have taken this action,” a senior SDMC official, who didn’t wish to be named, said.

About 275 guest houses and hotels operate from Mahipalpur along National Highway (NH) 8. Not just flyers leaving or arriving at IGI Airport but travellers coming from Jaipur, Gujarat and Mumbai also prefer these places for short stays. Roughly, about 100 of them run along roads lesser than six metres in width.

Showing a notice issued to him, Manjeet Sethi, owner of one such hotel, said, “When this area was a village called Nangli Dev near the airport and no budget hotels existed, flyers used to take shelter in our havelis in times of flight delays due to fog and accidents. We used to let them stay here for free in our spare rooms and that’s how the guest house business started.”

“Now, the government says we are illegal and must close,” he complained.

Suresh Sehrawat, president of the hotel association, Mahipalpur, said, “This sword of closure has been hanging on our heads for a while now. In 2015, we got an order from the lieutenant-governor, saying guest houses less than 15 metres in height do not need a fire NoC whether they are facing roads less than six metres or not. We thought we are safe from demolition, but these notices have got us scared again now.”

Area councillor Inderjit Sehrawat said he was looking at options to save the guest houses from closure. “The Delhi Laws (Special Provision) Act provides protection to guest houses running on even roads lesser than 4-5 feet in width in Karol Bagh and Paharganj as they came up prior to 2006. Why should the same rules not apply to Mahipalpur even if they came up after that time since the fire risks are same? We are trying to bring a new policy to protect them,” Sehrawat said.

First Published: Mar 24, 2019 03:24 IST