Regularising unauthorised colonies not a cakewalk

Five months after initiating the process of regularising unauthorised colonies, the AAP Government has realised that it is a complex and time consuming process. Despite the Government’s tall claims that it would speed up the process, the Arvind Kejriwal Government has finally agreed to follow a long and foolproof method to get things rolling in the national Capital.  

This means, people of unauthorised colonies will have to wait for opening of registry till the regularisation process is completed. At a high-level meeting chaired by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, it was decided that the registration of properties could be considered only after the Delhi Government sends the vetted maps to municipal bodies for the approval of the layout plans. Moreover, the satellite maps are to be first converted  into a layout  map and  then vetted  by the revenue department.  After which it would  be  posted  on the website  of the urban development department  for  inviting  objections from  the stakeholders. 

Then the objections raised by the stakeholders  would  be scrutinised  in a time bound manner by an interdepartmental committee.  Once the committee scrutinizes  the objections, the revenue department would finally  be responsible  to vet  the boundary of the  layout plans  and satellite maps.The Deputy Chief Minister has also directed the Urban Development principal secretary to submit the draft Cabinet note  on the  lines agreed upon  to the  Union Government for the final approval.  

While the layout plan has to be approved by the  municipal corporation,  the  change of land use  has to be cleared by the Delhi Development Authority.

The regularisation of unauthorised colonies  had played a critical role during the Delhi elections with all major political parties trying to woo residents by 

promising that  they would get their  colonies regularised  with all basic civic amenities. 

The erstwhile Sheila Dikshit Government had issued notification for regularisation of 895 unauthorised colonies in 2012 subject to fulfillment of norms prescribed by the Ministry of Urban Development’s guidelines for regularisation of unauthorised colonies. The first and foremost thing that the Government would be doing is that its Urban Development Department with the help of the Geo Spatial Data limited  will be obtaining satellite maps  of the colonies with built up  area  percentage  as on the cutoff date. 

A senior officer said these maps should be having natural boundaries in the form of any physical  features  such as drains, roads, railway line  and bye-lanes.

Earlier chief secretary DM Spolia had proposed to regularise all unauthorised colonies “as on where basis” to the Ministry of Urban Development during Presidential rule. But the proposal was not accepted by the Centre.