Land Pooling Policy awaits notification

Tribune News Service 

The Land Pooling Policy of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has been hanging fire as the Delhi Government is yet to notify several villages as development areas or urban villages. 

The Union Urban Development Ministry had on May 26 last year approved the five amendments to the said policy, but there has been no move thereafter with the Aam Admi Party government yet to issue a notification to declare 95 villages as development areas and 89 of them as urban villages. 

In this regard, the housing agency had earlier requested the city government to issue a notification and subsequently sent reminders but had apparently received no response. 

After the Centre's approval, DDA Vice-Chairperson Balvinder Kumar had said, "The ball is in Delhi Government's court. Both these requests are pending with the government in advanced stages. We hope it will soon issue the notification on it." 

Land Pooling Policy seeks to make landowners partners in the development and is divided into two categories of pooling -- Category I for land 20 ha and above and Category II for 2 ha to less than 20 ha. In the first category, the developer entity will have 60 per cent share, while the DDA will retain 40 per cent.

In the second category, the developer will have 48 per cent share whereas the DDA will retain 52 per cent. 

The policy is applicable in the proposed "urbanisable" areas of the urban extensions for which zonal plans have been approved and the urban village status to 89 villages will supersede the provisions of Delhi Reforms Act. 

The policy's implementation assumes significance as the DDA's Master Plan Delhi (MPD) 2021 proposes building of 25 lakh housing units by 2021 for which 10,000 hectare will be required. As per the DDA estimates, 2.5 lakh houses, including 50,000 EWS units, will require 1,000 hectare.