The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has not been able to make a headway in implementing its crucial land-pooling policy, as it still awaits the Delhi government’s notification, declaring several villages as development areas or urban villages.
The Union Urban Development Ministry had on May 26 last approved the regulations for operationalisation of the policy with five amendments, following which the DDA’s then vice-chairman Balvinder Kumar had said, “The ball is in the Delhi government’s court”.
“The ball is pretty much still in the Delhi government’s court as there has been no further progress on this front from their (government) side. The policy seems to be stuck right now,” a senior DDA official said.
The actual implementation of the policy hinges on the city government’s decision on declaring 95 villages as development areas and 89 of them as urban villages. The housing authority had earlier requested to it to issue a notification in this regard. After the Centre’s approval of the regulations, Kumar had said, “Both these requests are pending with the government in advanced stages. We hope it will soon issue the notification on it.”
Another top DDA official said, “We have already sent reminders to the Delhi government but have received no response from them. However, we are working on resolving the issue and getting that policy implemented.”
The land-pooling policy seeks to make landowners partners in the development and is divided into two categories of pooling – Category I for land 20 hectares and above and Category II for 2 hectares to less than 20 hectares.
In the first category, the developer entity will have 60 per cent share, while the DDA will retain the remaining 40 per cent. In the second category, the DDA will retain 52 per cent, while the rest will go to developer.
The policy is applicable in the proposed “urbanisable” areas of urban extensions, for which zonal plans have been approved. The ‘urban village’ status to 89 villages will nullify provisions of the Delhi Reforms Act governing them.
The policy’s implementation assumes significance as the DDA’s Master Plan Delhi (MPD) 2021 proposes the construction of 25 lakh housing units by 2021, for which 10,000 hectares of land will be required. As per the DDA’s estimates, 2.5 lakh houses, including 50,000 EWS units, will require 1,000 hectare of land.
Relief to small farmers, self-penalty on DDA for delays, and flexibility allowed to farmers to trade their land or tie-up with developers for land-pooling are some of the important features of the land-pooling policy.