Delhi's Unauthorised Colonies To Be Regularised In 6 Months: Tiwari

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said its representatives in Delhi would conduct a survey and take feedback from residents of unauthorised colonies, about the progress of its regularisation. While stating that the work has been pending for long, Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said his party would complete the work in six months’ time. 

The centre, on March 7, 2019, had approved a proposal to constitute a committee, under the chairmanship of Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal, to recommend a process to confer ownership or transfer rights to residents of unauthorised colonies in the national capital.

While both, the centre and the state government led by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, have been equally enthusiastic about this subject, almost 30 per cent of Delhi’s populace that dwells in these unauthorised colonies is waiting for relief. The cut-off date has been revised to June 1, 2014 and January 1, 2015.

In a press conference held in the national capital in July this year, union minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said that the centre had sent across a cabinet note based on the report tabled by the Baijal-led committee to all the concerned stakeholders. The 10-man panel had representatives from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the Union Housing Ministry, the Delhi Secretariat and the three municipal corporations.

Authorities are expecting feedback on the report and soon, on approval of the cabinet, Delhi’s 1,797 unauthorised colonies will be writ with a new fate. Property owners in these areas will thereafter be able to sell their property, loans will become available while civic amenities such as water and electricity will also be supplied to these areas.

Role of the committee

The panel was meant to suggest a process and mechanism for conferring or recognising rights of ownership or transfer or mortgage to the residents of unauthorised colonies and consequential benefits. It will also recommend measures, including revision, if any, in urban planning and development control norms, to ensure redevelopment for improving living conditions in these colonies. The panel will recommend the roles and responsibilities of all agencies concerned.

It had also been asked to suggest a methodology for conferment of ownership or transfer rights to residents including eligibility and conditions for regulation of the beneficiaries.

The 10-member panel will also set out the procedure and timelines and terms for granting and recognising of such rights, besides providing a definitive time-frame for completing this exercise.

Exceptions

Unauthorised pockets in the upmarket Anant Ram Dairy, Mahendru Enclave and Sainik Farms may not stand to gain with the authorities’ decision and neither will those get any land ownership rights if their property has been developed on a forest land, ridge and the Yamuna floodplains or those within restricted zone near monuments preserved by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).