NEW DELHI: The redevelopment and beautification program launched by the Delhi government is showing no signs of slowing down, with plans of building and renovating existing infrastructures to meet the growing demands of the ever increasing city populations as well as the coming commonwealth games in place. The government has now turned its attention towards renovating and beautifying main markets.

Connaught place is all set to be renovated also other main market near CP the Janpath market especially the Tibetan Market recently got a facelift. Now the attention has shifted to the mini-market at Janpath.

NDMC has mooted a plan to build an underground parking at the location of the existing market i.e. the area behind the LIC building. The plan is to build an underground parking facility at the existing site – the space created after that will be utilized to shift the market. This will involve shifting 57 shops and about 100 tehbazari permit holders.

An initiative of the NDMC’s civil engineering department, the project will be considered later this month at the councils meeting. Once the go ahead is given by the council, the work on awarding the tender will start. The timeline for all this is one year after the award of the project.

An NDMC official commenting on the project said, “We have designed the mini-market project on the lines of Dilli Haat. We plan to clear the encroachments and provide more open space in the market for pedestrians. At present most shops exist without sign boards and are of different sizes. However, under our redevelopment project we plan to make the shops of uniform height and provide them flexi-sheet signboards.”

The beatification and redevelopment plan for the area was in the pipeline for many years, the plan has taken a concrete shape only recently as part of the overall redevelopment plan of Connaught Place taken up by the Council with the Commonwealth Games-2010 in mind. Apart from NDMC, the three main stakeholders in the project are the Old Mini Market Traders’ Association, New Mini Market Traders’ Association and the Tehbazari Allotment Association.