like the erstwhile Congress Government, the Arvind Kejriwal Government is trying to sell the dream of authorising all the 1,600 unauthorised colonies in the national Capital. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday held a high-level meeting with officials of the Revenue Department and directed to start process of regularisation of unauthorised colonies.
The AAP Government seems to be desperate to appease the lakhs of people in unauthorised colonies. It has directed officials to start fixing boundaries of these colonies soon so that it can announce opening of registration of properties here.
The layout plan is required to be approved by the civic bodies after demarcation of boundaries of these colonies. Once the layout plan is approved, the registry will be opened. Sanctioning the layout plan is a tedious process. It took five years for the MCD to sanction one such plan.
As per established guidelines, properties falling under unauthorised colonies cannot be registered without the mandatory layout plan. The Central Government has hired three companies to carry out demarcation of boundaries in all unauthorised colonies. Satellite and Total Solution Methods (TSM) would be used for demarcation of boundaries.
Kejriwal has directed to finalise boundaries of over 1,600 unauthorised colonies in the city out of which around 800 have been regularised by the erstwhile Congress Government in 2012 but boundaries have not been fixed till date.
Kejriwal has directed the Revenue Department officials to start the process of demarcation of these colonies as soon as possible. Once the boundary of a particular colony is fixed, registration of properties in these colonies will begin. This will be followed by sending the maps to the respective municipal corporations for preparation of layout plan and then to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for change in land use.
According to Sisodia, the layout plan and land use change will simultaneously be taken up with the concerned authorities, but the registration of properties will not be delayed. The agencies for the demarcation of the boundaries have been identified. Sisodia also added that registry of such colonies would begin after the process of boundary fixation is completed.
Its appears to be a desperate move by the AAP Government as registration of properties in unauthorised colonies cannot be open without approval of layout plan by the civic bodies. The MCD has approved the layout plan of only one colony in the past five years.
The Kejriwal Government is doing exactly what the Sheila Dikshit Government did for 15 years. The regularisation of unauthorised colonies is a tedious and complicated process. The issue of regularisation of these colonies will open another front between the AAP and BJP. “There are certain norms for regularisation of these colonies. The fixing of boundaries is not easy,” said the official.
“Both AAP and BJP are at loggerheads over several issues and they will not see eye to eye on any issue. The Delhi Government will fix the boundary and send it to MCD for approval of layout plan. The corporation will certainly delay the approval of layout plan to hit the AAP Government and without layout plan approval, registry cannot be opened,” said an official.
In total, there are around 1,600 unauthorised colonies in Delhi. The BJP Government at Centre has relaxed the norms of regularisation of these colonies and it has decided that the colonies will be regularised on as-is-where-is basis and had fixed the cut-off date as January 1, 2015.
It is noted that in a seven-page note, the Delhi Government’s Department of Urban Development had said that of the 904 colonies, 486 were not eligible for regularisation and 326 others were still indeterminate due to non-availability of built-up per cent as per guidelines and forest, ASI and DDA hindrances details within the unauthorised colonies.