Panel report on illegal colonies next month; will discuss development fee, cut-off date
The recommendations will be submitted to the new government at the centre in the first week of June, said an official aware of the development.
The Centre-appointed committee is all set to finalise its recommendations on the process to give ownership rights to residents of 1,797 unauthorised colonies in Delhi.
The recommendations will be submitted to the new government at the centre in the first week of June, said an official aware of the development.
The 10-member committee headed by Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal is likely to recommend fixing of boundaries of unauthorised colonies using satellite images, said the official. But the committee is yet to take a final call on the issue of development charges and recovering land cost in case of unauthorised colonies which have come up on government land.
The two have been contentious issues, as a large number of resident welfare associations (RWAs) had refused to pay the charges in 2008, when the then Congress government had initiated the regularisation process.
“We are still deliberating on the issue of taking develop charges from all colonies for providing infrastructure. There are a lot of colonies which have come up on government land. A decision needs to be taken whether the cost of land should be recovered from the residents or not. There are some issues related to roads and forest land that needs to be addressed,” said the official.
According to the official, the cut-off date for eligibility of the colonies – presently, January 1, 2015 — needs to be reviewed.
“It is not the mandate of the committee to recommend on the cut-off date, but it is an important aspect which needs to be looked as in order to ensure that more and more people benefit from the government’s policy. A lot of development has happened in the last four years,” said the official.
To start the registry of properties in these colonies, committee members say, the boundaries have to be fixed first. For this, the cut –off date has to be finalised. “The boundaries can be fixed by superimposing the satellite images with the boundary plans submitted by the respective RWAs,” said an official.
The committee was constituted by the Centre just before the Lok Sabha elections to initiate the process to give ownership rights to residents of unuathorised colonies over their properties. “We are looking at the issue in a comprehensive manner so that people can get the ownership rights and government can provide planned development in these areas,” said an official aware of the development.
