The Hindu : New Delhi News : “Provisional regularisation” an election stunt, says BJP

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Thursday, Jun 19, 2008
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“Provisional regularisation” an election stunt, says BJP

Staff Reporter

‘Sheila Govt. is misleading people living in these colonies’

- Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar.

“Thank You”: Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit calls on Union Minister for Urban Development S.Jaipal Reddy at Nirman Bhawan in the Capital on Wednesday to thank him for giving powers to the Delhi Government to provisionally regularise any unauthorised colony.

NEW DELHI: Describing the Delhi Government’s decision to provisionally regularise unauthorised colonies within a fortnight as a “gimmick” ahead of the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections, BJP leaders in the Capital have cautioned that this move would boomerang on the Congress and it would be taught a lesson by the residents of these colonies who have been deliberately misled on the issue.

Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan said the Sheila Government was only misleading millions of people living in these colonies through the announcement. Had it been serious about their welfare, it would have gone in for permanent regularisation instead of issuing “provisional” certificates.

Dr. Vardhan also recalled that six months ago the Delhi Government and the Union Urban Development Ministry had announced that all unauthorised colonies in the Capital would be regularised within the next nine months. “But now they have deliberately extended this period for one year more by adding the word provisional,” he said.

He said the terms and conditions for regularising these colonies under the new Master Plan for Delhi-2021 had been made very stern and therefore they were difficult to implement. He also charged that while the Delhi Government talks of having a Rs.2,800-crore fund for these colonies, not a single unauthorised colony has been developed in the past ten years.

Dr. Vardhan also pointed out that while two Delhi Assembly sessions were called and a resolution was passed to regularise these colonies without charging any fee or penalty as was done during the regime of Indira Gandhi in 1976-77, that method was not adopted by the Congress governments at the Centre and in Delhi for regularising these colonies. BJP general secretary Vijay Goel said while the Congress had slept over the issue of regularisation for ten years, the BJP would regularise them if it comes to power in Delhi in a few months from now. “The Government notification has no value till the path is not paved for regularising all unauthorised colonies of Delhi after radically amending the Master Plan for Delhi-2021,” he added.

Mr. Goel said the Delhi Government should have looked into its own performance before cursing the BJP-ruled Municipal Corporation of Delhi. He charged that the Union Ministry and the Delhi Government had prescribed such tedious and impracticable terms in the Master Plan that it had become almost impossible to regularise even one unauthorised colony.

Preliminary enquiry

“The applications filed by the residents’ welfare associations of different unauthorised colonies were dismissed by the DDA on preliminary enquiry with the remarks that the RWAs had not fulfilled the terms and conditions of regularisation as stipulated in the Master Plan,” he said. Mr. Goel said despite two extensions of the deadline for submission of applications, the RWAs have been unable to submit their papers due to difficult terms and conditions. Also, he said, till the Master Plan was cleared and amended by the Supreme Court, the regularisation of even one colony would be impossible.

The Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Jagdish Mukhi, said the Sheila Government had also modified the definition of “government land” and “private land” recently according to which such land has been declared as private land where the farmers had not taken compensation for the land.

But, he charged that after the announcement the Delhi Government had not de-notified such colonies where notices under Section 4-6 had been issued.

If the Delhi Government and the Union Ministry were really serious about regularising the unauthorised colonies, then they should first de-notify such colonies.

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