NEW DELHI: With the Centre setting the ball rolling for regularisation of unauthorised colonies in the national capital, the revenue department of the Delhi government has started preparing estimates for additional staff and offices to handle the possible surge in requests for registration of properties.
Officials of the department said each sub-registrar office would require at least 10 extra employees to cater to the demand.
“Though registration of properties is done entirely online in Delhi, the process takes time. A few sub-registrar offices are overburdened, where the waiting time is about 4-7 days. It is estimated that there are about 20 lakh properties in colonies awaiting regularisation. As and when registration begins in those colonies, there will be too much pressure on registrar offices,” said an official of the Delhi government associated with the property registration offices.
Delhi has 21 sub-registrar offices in its 11 districts.
According to an estimate by the department, 150-160 properties are registered in Delhi every day.
Another official posted with the revenue department said comments had been sought from them on whether more sub-registrar offices would be required to deal with the rush.
“Both the (Centre and state) governments are inclined to begin regularisation before the Assembly polls. Hence, the revenue officers were asked to explain how to open new registrar offices, work out modalities and find out the requirement for additional staff,” he said.
Recently, the housing and urban affairs ministry prepared a cabinet note to grant ownership rights to people residing in 1,797 unauthorised colonies, including those on government land.
The Delhi Development Authority will soon undertake the process of determining the boundaries of such colonies. It will utilise the services of the Survey of India, for which Cabinet approval is awaited.
The agency will use GIS images to fix the limits of the colonies.
“Earlier this year, at the onset of the survey of unauthorised colony, the department did an assessment, which was sent to the ministry as well. It was projected that 30 tehsildars and 30 naib tehsildars would be required in each district to support, coordinate, and supervise the survey work,” said the official