CM slams Centre for not listing Bill on unauthorised colonies

NEW DELHI: A day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) accused the BJP of not listing a Bill to regularise the unauthorised colonies in the national Capital in the Winter Session of the Parliament despite making promises, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday questioned the intention of the Centre on the issue and said that he will ensure that people living in such colonies get registry papers.

Attacking the BJP-led Central government for not listing the Bill, Kejriwal claimed that pressure from the Delhi government forced the Centre to pass the Bill in the Union Cabinet, "but they're delaying the process once again".

Speaking to the media, he said that on November 12, 2015, Delhi government passed a proposal to regularise the unauthorised colonies in Delhi and sent it to the Union government. "For the last four years, the Delhi government continued to put immense pressure on the Union government to clear the proposal. We have always said that their intent is suspect," the Chief Minister said.

He accused the Union government of making irrelevant excuses for not clearing the proposal. "In 2015, we had used satellite maps to demarcate the unauthorised colonies in the proposal. But they rejected the use of satellite maps and asked us to conduct a TSM survey, which required five years. Interestingly, now the Union government has accepted the use of satellite maps for demarcation purpose. "After continuous pressure mounted by the AAP government and the people of Delhi, the Centre has announced the regularisation process just before the Assembly elections. But not listing it in the government's agenda for the winter session of the Parliament exposes their true intention clearly," he added. Kejriwal also said that he wanted to assure the people of Delhi that "just like we forced them to pass our CCTV file and the Mohalla Clinic file, we will force the Centre to regularise the unauthorised colonies at the earliest."

AAP's national spokesperson, Raghav Chadha said, "It's unfortunate that despite monumental claims by the BJP-led central government on the issue of regularisation of unauthorised colonies, in the Winter Session of the Parliament which has started from Monday, the Central government is going to bring 27 new bills but the bill to regularise the unauthorised colonies of Delhi is not present in the list."

"On behalf of the Aam Aadmi Party we want to clarify that if the BJP led central government does not come up with a concrete plan to regularise the unauthorised colonies, then from the streets to the Parliament, the AAP will launch large protests to mobilise the people and to pressurise the Central government to bring a bill to regularise the unauthorised colonies," said Chadha.

AAP's election in-charge Sanjay Singh said, "The lies of BJP have been caught. In an all party meeting organised on Monday, BJP presented 27 bills that would be tabled during session and there was no bill for regularising unauthorised colonies."