In what is good news for thousands of families and will also appease the votebank of Aam Aadmi Party, the Arvind Kejriwal Government has started working on a plan to grant ownership rights to original allottees in 51 resettlement colonies that were developed during 1958-1980.
Delhi Government’s Urban Development Department has started working on the
proposal, making freehold
policy or giving ownership right to resettlement colonies in the national Capital.
Once the guidelines are framed, Delhi Government will need approval from Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) and Union Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD). The Union Urban Development Ministry has already given approval for granting ownership rights to residents 51 resettlement colonies.
According to sources, the erstwhile Sheila Dikshit Government had framed a
policy to grant ownership right to resettlement colonies based on the existing circle rate
of the properties.
“Now, the Kejriwal Government wants to put minimum burden on the people of these colonies who voted the party in the recent Assembly polls. As per preliminary proposal, `10,000 to be recovered from original allottees while `50,000 from those who are not original allottees. The party has won all the seats in resettlement colonies in Delhi and the Congress candidates forfeited their deposit,” said sources.
Ownership rights have been extended to those living in 51 such neighbourhoods in Delhi and the Delhi Government is expecting to reach out to nearly 15 lakh people. Granting ownership rights to houses in resettlement colonies would mean homeowners would be eligible for bank loans. land was allotted in the resettlement colonies, including Aruna Nagar and Majnu ka Tila, which comprised a total of about 2,50,000 plots.
Officials said the Supreme Court had in September 2010 given a green signal for
granting ownership rights to the allottees. The residents of the colonies had been demanding granting ownership rights for over two decades.
It is shocking that the problems of resettlement colonies have remained unsolved since many decades. In 1958, the Government had appointed a committee to investigate the problems of growth and existence of jhuggis in urban Delhi. During the next several years, about 45 resettlement colonies were developed by DDA, established mostly during the 1970s. Many such committees, notifications, solutions and schemes have been constituted repeatedly but none of the problems of Delhi’s resettlement colonies have ever been solved. And yet, legally these properties continue to be under the ownership of Government of India and the occupants have no claim of these properties. While DUSIB was formed to give freehold rights to the owners, this has still remained a distant dream. The existing policy to get ownership right was on based on circle rate of properties.