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Councillors question GDA’s land use conversion in Nehru Nagar
Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillors have alleged irregularities on part of the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) in the notification issued for the
Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillors have alleged irregularities on part of the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) in the notification issued for the land use conversion of 9,445 square metres of green belt area into residential. The councillors claimed that the green belt is part of the Nehru Nagar residential scheme while the authority said it was occupied by a godown.
In its board meeting on January 23, it was decided that public objections should be invited for the land use change. The authority floated a public notice on February 29 and sought objections within a month for conversion of land into residential use, meant for a group housing project.
“The layout plan of the Nehru Nagar scheme was last changed in April 1989 and the 9,445 sqm land is the green belt. In its public notice, the GDA has mentioned that it wants the land use converted from godown to residential. This is not allowed as per norms. There have been instances where the authority has given away green belt land for hospitals, schools etc,” Rajendra Tyagi, councillor from Raj Nagar, said.
He and councillor Himanshu Mittal from Kavi Nagar have sent a joint complaint to the UP government in this regard and also to the GDA vice-chairperson Kanchan Verma.
“In 2012, the authority had tried to convert the land use to residential and I had submitted my written objection to that. After that, the GDA rejected the land use conversion proposal. There has been blatant misuse of green belts by GDA in areas such as Raj Nagar, Kavi Nagar and Nehru Nagar, among others,” Tyagi said.
He added that the GDA cannot convert the land use and sell it for group housing development as the present allottees of Nehru Nagar have borne the cost of development of green belt on this area.
The GDA officials claimed that the green belt land use was converted to godown in 2012.
“At that time, no public objection was invited. Hence, we have now invited public objections within a month. The by-laws for land use came into effect in 2008 and there were no by-laws governing the land use prior to that. After the by-laws came into force, we are maintaining 15% of the total group housing land as green belts. However, this did not apply to earlier schemes,” Verma said.
“There are many areas where electricity substations and other public utilities have come up on green belts. This is allowed as per norms. We will be going ahead with the notification inviting public objection for changing the godown to residential land use,” she added.
