Govt must pay for layout plans for unauthorised colonies: South DMC

The South DMC has washed its hands off the task of recovering money from resident welfare associations (RWAs) to prepare layout plans for the recently regularised unauthorised colonies as not even a single RWA has deposited the money

so far. 

In a House meeting of the South DMC on Friday, the corporation passed a resolution demanding Delhi government to waive off charges and bear the cost of preparing layout plans.

‘Delhi government must waive off all charges from the recently regularised 895 unauthorised colonies and bear the cost of preparing layout plans for them,’ said Rajesh Gehlot, chairman of the standing committee in South Delhi Municipal Corporation. He further added that RWAs of these colonies have  not been responding to letters and reminders from the corporation to deposit the fees for the layout plan for the past five months. 

He also informed that a representation of RWAs recently met him expressing their concern on the project and said that their layout plans submitted in 2008 to Delhi government for obtaining ‘provisional certificates of regularisation’ were  discarded.

‘They have submitted the layout plans to the Delhi government but were ditched every time,’ added Gehlot. 

The government had assigned the task of preparing layout plans to three institutes in the city- namely the School of Planning and Architecture, Jamia Millia Islamia and GGS Indraprastha University. These institutes are charging fees of Rs 50,000  per acre for these colonies and the civic bodies had been assigned the responsibility  collecting the money and deposit it with the institutes for preparation of layout plans or first invest money and then recover it from these RWAs. ‘We don’t have any authority on these institutes and RWAs have refused to deposit the money. 

Furthermore, Delhi government is also not honouring its promise to give grant-in-aid of Rs 200 crore to make layout plans,’ said Subhash Arya, leader of house in South DMC. He said the government must bear the cost of preparation of layout plans and waive off all charges from 583 unauthorised colonies situated on government land. 

The resolution also demanded that councillors be given right to invest local area fund in these colonies.