Many pagdi shopkeepers, accompanied by women and children today staged a demonstration near Union minister Venkaiah Naidu’s residence here, against the Delhi Rent Control Act.
Many pagdi shopkeepers, accompanied by women and children today staged a demonstration near Union minister Venkaiah Naidu’s residence here, against the Delhi Rent Control Act.
Holding chapatis and placards in their hands, the protesters demanded the government to stop eviction of shopkeepers by landlords on the grounds of “bonafide need” provision of the Act.
The police, however, took the agitators to Tughlaq Road police station and they were later released. “The protesters who were nearly 30 in number were taken away from the protest venue. Since some children were also accompanying the protesters, they too were taken away as they could not be left on the road. No one was detained,” said a senior police officer.
The protesters in their memorandum alleged that the tenants falling under the Act have been facing a “crisis of bread and butter” in the form of evictions under “false” bonafide need being propounded by the landlords. Almost all the protected tenants have paid the entire market price of the property at the time of taking it on rent by way of pagdi (amount paid at the time of entering rent), they claimed.
