Giving relief to those owning houses and shops of municipality on lease or rent basis for the past 20 years in Haryana, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Sunday announced ownership rights for them.

For the execution of this announcement, a policy has been framed under which the tenant will have to pay less than the present collector rate to get the ownership right, the Chief Minister said while addressing a digital press conference here.

Khattar said that if anyone has taken a shop, house on the municipal land either on rent, lease basis, Tehbazari or by paying license fee for 20 years or more, all such occupiers would be given ownership right under this policy. As per the policy, the occupier should have completed 20 years as of December 31, 2020.

The Chief Minister also announced that a rebate of 20 percent on the current collector rate would be given to those tenants who have been residing in the house or are running a shop for the past 20 years. Similarly, those who have an occupancy period of 50 years will get a rebate of up to 50 percent. Besides this, if an occupier has a period of more than 50 years, then in that case he will be given a maximum relaxation of 50 percent only on the present collector rate.

Khattar said that the municipalities associated with the occupiers who are found eligible by the competent authority will issue notice to the beneficiary asking them to pay the amount fixed after the rebate within a period of 15 days. The beneficiary will have to deposit 25 percent of the total fixed amount to the concerned municipality within a period of 15 days counted from issuance of the notice, while the remaining 75 percent amount will have to be deposited within three months.

The Chief Minister announced that if a municipality has rented or leased any land building to one or more occupiers, then the amount will have to be paid as per the fixed floor-wise formula.

He said that if only one allottee has been allotted the constructed building, then the base rate will have to be paid for that. If the municipality has constructed two floors and each floor is given to two different allottees, then 60 percent of the base rate for the ground floor and 40 percent of the base rate for the first floor will have to be paid.

The Chief Minister further said that the government had issued orders for exchange of revenue roads. Apart from these, there is a lot of land in different pieces in the municipalities which are not being used and hence there is a possibility of illegal encroachment. Therefore, it has been decided that the municipalities would be authorized to sell such lands, he added.

Rs 3,700 crore to be spent on pavement of rajwahas under micro-irrigation scheme

Khattar announced that the State Government has restructured and redesignated the Command Area Development Authority (CADA) as Micro Irrigation and Command Area Development Authority (MICADA) to promote micro irrigation and for effective implementation of the works  pertaining to watercourses on the canals.

He said that there are a total of 15,006 rajwahas (small canals) in the state, out of which 3512 are unpaved  and 11,494 are paved. The goal of MICADA is to micro-irrigate 70 percent of the land irrigated by Rajwahas.

For this purpose, MICADA has started three new projects for the construction of new rajwahas and rehabilitation of old and dilapidated ones, which will be completed by March 31, 2025. This includes paving of 1,546 rajwahas included in Bhakra Canal Command Phase-II, W.J.C. Canal Phase-IV and JLN Canal Command-II. About 2,68,625 hectares of land will be irrigated through these rajwahas and an amount of Rs 3,700 crore will be spent on this work, he said

The Chief Minister said that the government is also doing the mapping of rajwahas which are more than 20 years old.

He said that during the budget session of 2019-20, an announcement of paving all 5 Karam paths connecting one village to another village in the state was made. In line with this announcement, Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board has identified 475 unpaved paths measuring 1225 kilometers.

An amount of Rs 490 crore will be spent on the pavement work. The target is to ensure that the pavement work of these paths is completed by the year 2023-24, he added.