Delhi growth manual to roll out in two months
The Master Plan Delhi (MPD) 2021 is nearing completion as the advisory committee, headed by lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung, is clearing the inclusion of two separate chapters on environment and transportation. After being under review for one-and-a-half years, the manual for Delhi’s development — MPD 2021 — is expected to be rolled out within two months.
“After a marathon three-hour meet, the advisory committee has cleared the inclusion of the chapters on environment and transportation in the Delhi Master Plan,” said Balvinder Kumar, vice chairman, Delhi Development Authority (DDA). Now, both chapters will go to public for objection and suggestion. “These two chapters were left as most of our work is done, and therefore we think, now the Delhi Master Plan, should be ready in the next two months,” added Kumar.
The l-G of Delhi is also the chairman of the DDA, the urban body which prepares the Master Plan for the Capital. “Transport Corridor and Metro Corridor have been discussed in it and we are also discussing Transit-Oriented-Development (TOD) in such areas, that is, to take up the development activities closer to transportation facilities,” said a DDA official.
On the land use, the Master Plan will also see a new concept of ‘land pooling’ as against just ‘land acquisition’, so as to ‘increase the partnership’ of farmers with the DDA, said a senior DDA official on condition of anonymity. “Earlier, farmers got compensation for the land acquired from them. But as per the new Master Plan, a group of farmers, who own lands contiguous to each other, can pool them together into a unit as a landholder consortium, and apply to the DDA as that consortium, after which, the DDA will keep a certain percentage of the land and the rest can be used by the consortium for their own development work,” the official maintained. More than 100 amendments had to be done to the plan after the authority invited public objections.