NEW DELHI: In another attempt to grant legitimacy to 1,797 settlements in the national capital, the Centre on Thursday set up a committee to recommend a process to confer ownership or transfer property rights to residents in unauthorised colonies.
The 10-member panel comprising bureaucrats and urban planners, with Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal as its chairman, has been given three months to submit its report. However, residents and urban planners are not pleased with the development. They say, the announcement does not change the status of residential settlements in question and it is just political posturing to benefit in elections. Jagdish Mamgain, former chairman of standing committee of unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (2007-2012), said the move is a political stunt.
“Proposals for regularisation of unauthorised colonies were brought up for approval on several occasions in the last 26 years but nothing was finalised. When an election nears, the issue is raised. In 2014 and 2015 also, the Centre announced regularisation,” he said.
Ashok Bhasin, chairman of the North Delhi Residents Welfare Federation (NDRWF), said the formation of the panel is a sham exercise to lure voters. “It is an election lollipop. State and Central governments are equally responsible for the mess in the city.” he said
According to the Delhi Economic Survey 2018-19, 40 lakh residents are living in 1,797 colonies, which have come up in violation of the master plan. Their inhabitants play a pivotal role in deciding any elections in the city.
Ahead of 2008 assembly elections, then chief minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit handed over provisional certificates to 1,218 colonies. However, two years later only 895 colonies were declared eligible for regularisation.
A majority of the population in unauthorised colonies and slum clusters were loyal voters of the Congress. That changed following the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).AK Jain, former commissioner (planning) of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) said the exercise, which started around 10 years ago, had failed because boundaries of many colonies were based on fictitious surveys.
“Maps of unauthorised colonies in the list could not be verified as no ground survey was conducted. Half the plots there were vacated. Regulations say only structures are regularised, not vacant land. Hence, no development took place on the ground,” said Jain.
The first attempt to regularise these settlements was in 1962. At that time, there were only 110 unauthorised colonies with population of about 2.21 lakh inhabitants.
Within 15 years, the number of colonies shot up to 565. About 567 unauthorised colonies had been regularised till 1993 even as settlements kept mushrooming in different parts of the city.In October, then chief minister Madan Lal Khurana brought a proposal to approve 1,071 unauthorised colonies.
“As the DDA and state government failed to provide affordable public housing, people with limited income sought alternatives and real estate mafia took advantage of the situation,” said an urban planner.