Wedding venues needed, govt tells DDA

Amitabh Shukla

New Delhi, December 12

After getting a large number of representations from citizen groups, RWAs and fathers of grooms and brides that there was a paucity of sites for wedding functions, the Delhi government on Tuesday asked the DDA to locate at least 1000 such sites at the earliest.

“Looking for a site for wedding has become a Herculean task in the city. People have been forced to postpone weddings due to extreme paucity of such sites,” said Delhi Urban development Minister A.K. Walia.

In his letter to the Vice Chairman of DDA, Walia conveyed the woes of the people of the city in organisaing wedding and other social functions in the aftermath of the closure of banquet halls and limited use of the farmhouses.

“If the issue is not addressed immediately, the situation would further aggravate leading to a chaotic situation,” the minister said. He said people are now forced to organise their wedding outside Delhi or postpone marriages with a hope to arrange suitable site in Delhi. “Many of the marriages and other social functions are now being held in the neighbouring UP and Haryana as they have no such restriction,” Walia wrote to DDA Vice Chairman Dinesh Rai.

“Several people have approached us as elected representative to seek assistance in booking of suitable venue for weddings in their family. We are finding ourselves helpless with the number of complaints increasing,” he added.

The Delhi government has suggested DDA to develop at least 15 such sites in each of the 70 Assembly Constituencies. Walia also exhorted DDA to give due consideration to the urgent need of the people and make it an integral part of planning in respect of Master Plan 2021.

In the limited venues available in the city, the ministers are hopping from one venue to the other these days in the “marriage season”. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had 11 wedding functions listed in her itinerary. Each of the six Cabinet ministers had at least a dozen wedding functions listed in their engagements. “This is a social and political obligation and we have to attend several wedding functions and parties every evening,” said a minister. (2006)