Urban local bodies will maintain 188 Huda sectors across Haryana

In order to give some breathing space to the cash-strapped Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda), the state government approved the transfer of 188 sectors developed by the urban authority across Haryana to urban local bodies.

These include residential, industrial and institutional sectors where development is complete, ending Huda’s role as a maintenance agency.

This will lead to the transfer of 44 sectors in Gurgaon — 36 residential and five industrial sectors, including Udyog Vihar, and three institutional sectors to the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG).

The transfer of sectors to the urban local bodies should have happened within five years of completing development work.

The Huda has retained 13 sectors in Gurgaon, including Sector 29, in which development is pending.

The cash crunch has forced the government to transfer the maintenance of these sectors that is costly and earns little revenue. Success of the MCG in collecting property tax worth crores has also spurred top officials in Chandigarh to transfer this function to the urban local bodies.

After the sector transfer becomes effective, the urban local bodies will look after water supply, sewerage, stormwater drains, street lights, roads, horticultural and sanitation.

The deficiency in services will be rectified by the Huda in three months or it will deposit the cost as mutually agreed by the two agencies.

In order to bring clarity to the process, the chief administrator of Huda has fine tuned the conditions with respect to land, services, machinery and work force that will be transferred to the urban local bodies.

As per the terms of transfer, ownership of all open spaces in these sectors will now rest with the urban local bodies. However, the ownership of land reserved for undetermined use and unsold sites of all types shall remain with the Huda.

The Huda maintenance staff will initially be sent on deputation to the concerned urban local body.

However, the service and salary of the staff, who merge with local bodies, will be protected. There is, however, strong opposition to this point as Huda employees across Haryana are apprehensive about their service conditions.

The extension fee, transfer fee and other recoveries related to plots will go to the Huda, 75% of which will be transferred to urban local bodies by the middle of the month.