The Hindu : New Delhi News : `Regularisation of colonies in final phase'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 23, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

`Regularisation of colonies in final phase'

Staff Reporter

Final discussion between Delhi Government and Centre to begin soon: Minister

NEW DELHI: Asserting that the massive exercise for regularisation of hundreds of unauthorised colonies in the Capital was in its final stages, Urban Development Minister A.K. Walia on Thursday informed the Delhi Assembly that the final round of talks between the State Government and the Centre on the issue would begin soon.

Replying to a short duration discussion moved by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Ranbir Singh Kharab (Independent) and Mukesh Sharma (Congress), Dr. Walia said aerial survey and photography of the unauthorised colonies was conducted in 1993 and 2002. A list of 1,071 colonies was submitted in 1993. Developmental works relating to construction of roads and lanes were being undertaken in 465 of the 1,071 colonies and a sum of Rs. 231 crores had been spent on developmental works. He clarified that in order to provide better civic services to residents of the maximum number of unauthorised colonies, a fresh exercise was undertaken to update the list for regularisation.

A fresh list of 1,432 colonies was submitted to Delhi Government for which a cut-off date of March 31, 2002, was fixed. The Deputy Commissioners (Revenue) concerned have submitted land status report in respect of 1,402 colonies and other agencies would also submit their final submissions very soon.

Earlier, initiating the debate, Mr. Bidhuri said it was high time the Delhi Government put pressure on the Union Government to take immediate action to set in motion the process for regularisation of 1,500-odd unauthorised colonies in the Capital where nearly 30 lakh people live. Appreciating the approach of Dr. Walia, Mr. Bidhuri said nothing short of the 1976-77 policy adopted by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for regularisation of such colonies would be acceptable and said it was unfortunate that for the past more than 14 years not a single colony had been regularised in the Capital. The Government had moved swiftly for relocation of industrial units and rehabilitation of slum clusters but this urgency was not being witnessed in the unauthorised colonies deal. He also charged the BJP and its NDA Government with betraying the interests of the people and not doing anything concrete to ensure regularisation of such colonies.

Taking part in the debate, Mr. Sharma said it was time for action and no longer could the people residing in these colonies be taken for a ride. Mahabal Mishra (Cong) said the Congress had always worked in the interest of the poor. He urged the Government to allow construction of concrete cement roads in such colonies as absence of drainage system destroyed the bitumen top roads. Stating that no further debate should be held on the issue, Mr. Mishra said the time had come to take definite steps to regularise these colonies and said the Rs. 20 lakh each being spent on these colonies was of no use.

The Kalkaji MLA, Subhash Chopra (Cong) said Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had led a delegation of MLAs to the President of India on July 29, 2000, seeking intervention in matter of regularisation of unauthorised colonies. However, he regretted that nothing had been done after that on the subject.

Putting the Government in the dock, Mr. Chopra said of the Rs. 70 crore searmarked during 2004-05 for developmental works in such colonies, only Rs. 28 crores was spent and of the Rs. 50 crores earmarked for 2005-06, only Rs. 6 crores had been spent till now with only three months left of the current financial year.

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