Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Thursday met Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath to press for easing regularisation norms for the benefit of the most.
According to sources, Nath has assured full cooperation. Delhi Chief Secretary DM Spolia, Urban Development Department Minister Arvinder Singh lovely, Secretary (Urban Development) Dr Sudhir Krishna were also present at the hour-long meeting.
Principal Secretary (Urban Development Department) RK Srivastava had written to his counterpart in the Ministry, pointing out that the large number of colonies regularised in September last year do not fulfill criteria and could not be recognised unless guidelines are amended.
This is why the department has failed to issue gazette notification of regularisation despite issuing notification order for regularisation of 895 colonies last year.
Sources said the Ministry has agreed to change certain clauses so regularisation can be completed, which it will inform the Delhi Government of soon.
In his letter of April 30 to Krishna, Srivastava stated that 583 colonies were on mixed private and public lands and could not be regularised till cost of public land is recovered.
"Similarly, 450 colonies do not meet built-up percentage of norms - a minimum 50 per cent required in 2007 - and also may not have 10 per cent in 2002 to prove their existence as on March 31, 2002. The present ground situation would be entirely different and regularisations may need to be amended to bring those unauthorised colonies that existed on March 31, 2002 within the ambit of regularisation," the letter noted.
"As neither revised guidelines 2007 nor regulations 2008 provide any definition regarding existence of unauthorised colony as on March 31, 2002, the Delhi Government had taken a decision that for determining existence of the colony, at least 10 per cent of the area of the colony should have been under recognisable cluster type habitation as on March 31, 2002," it added.
"The requirement of documents which do not materially affect fixation of boundary deciding eligibility of the colony may need to be relaxed and the Centre may empower Delhi Government to consider this," the letter read.
It further stated that procedure adopted by Surveyor of India while fixing boundary and calculating built-up percentage may need ratification by the Centre.
On affluent colonies, Srivastava stated that this aspect could not be determined by the State while considering regularisation of colonies as no norms have been provided.