Amidst the controversy over unauthorised colonies and buildings in Punjab leading to a ‘divided’ Congress party, the State Housing and Urban Development Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa on Thursday discussed the draft of the new policy for regularisation of unauthorised colonies with the Ministers, MlAs urging them to submit suggestions for finalising the new policy within a week.
Aiming at giving relief to the stakeholders of these colonies, a meeting of ministers and MlAs was convened on Thursday at Punjab Civil Secretariat to discuss the draft of the new policy which was chaired by Bajwa who briefed the members about the process adopted for drafting the new policy.
Bajwa said that he, along with the senior officers of the Department, held separate meetings with the colonisers of both legal and illegal colonies and the residents of these colonies. “The new draft, placed for discussion in this meeting, has been prepared by an officers’ committee which has tried to incorporate all the valid suggestions submitted by the colonizers and the common people in the earlier meetings,” he told the members.
The state Additional Chief Secretary (Housing and Urban Development) Vini Mahajan formally placed the draft of the new policy for regularization of unauthorized colonies before the participating members.
Patiala Development Authority’s chief administrator Harpreet Sudan elaborated that the policy has been drafted keeping in mind the interests of the residents or plot holders of the unauthorized colonies, and will be applicable to the entire state including the municipal limits.
During the meeting, the Ministers and MlAs placed their views on various points mentioned in the draft of the policy. They emphasized that the Department must consider the welfare of the residents living in illegal colonies as well as of those who have bought plots there.
Bajwa assured all the public representatives, present in the meeting, that the new policy would be finalized keeping in view the interests of general public and all the stakeholders including colonizers, plot holders and the government.
He asked the Ministers and MlAs to further send their suggestions in writing to the department, so that those could also be incorporated in the draft of the policy. “Next meeting to finalize the policy would be held next week,” he said.
The meeting was attended by local Government Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, Animal Husbandry Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, Revenue Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Industries Minister Sundar Sham Arora, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla. Among the MlAs were Pargat Singh, Sushil Kumar Rinku, and Sanjeev Talwar.