Illegal colonies: Further extension of regularisation policy on cards

Kuldip Bhatia      

Ludhiana, November 14

Even as the revised policy for regularisation of illegal colonies in the state of Punjab, which had expired on October 30, had failed to achieve the desired results and most developers of unlicensed colonies had chosen to stay away from the policy, the government seems to be inclined towards further extension of the policy for at least another three-month period. 

Representatives of the developers’ body who were in the know of things, claim that indications to this effect (further extension of the policy), perhaps till March 2020, were given to them both by the top officials of the Housing and Urban Development Department as well as the minister concerned. 

Going by the meagre number of applications (around 500) received by the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) for regularisation of colonies and over 17,000 plots and property owners, it would not be wrong to surmise that the policy, if extended in its present form (without radical changes), would meet the fate of all earlier policies and the objective of regulating the development of colonies would remain a far-fetched idea. While the official number of illegal colonies under the jurisdiction of GLADA was put at 1,920 the actual figure stood at anywhere around 3,500.

A majority of developers were not very happy with the policy in its present form and have been pressing for further simplification, along with a cut in licence fee, internal and external development charges and they firmly maintain that any

further extension in the 

policy would prove to be of any use only after the proverbial red tape was removed and procedural hurdles were removed. 

However, another section of the developers here strongly feels that in the wake of persistent downtrend in the realty sector and liquidity crunch, providing any further opportunity to the developers for regularisation of colonies would be an exercise in futility. 

A city-based developer and general secretary of Punjab Colonisers and Property Dealers Association said the realty sector was passing through its worst crisis with buyers and investors in property market having vanished due to recessionary trend. He asserted that even if the policy (for regularisation) was further extended, no developer would probably come forward to take benefit for the simple reason that there were no funds available with them to make any further investment. 

Several other players in the property market, as well as developers blamed the bureaucracy, procedural wrangles and dealing staff in the area development authorities for failure of the regularisation policy. “Unless drastic changes are made in the policy and the dealing hands changed their attitude of finding frivolous discrepancies in the applications submitted by developers (most of whom were not highly educated or computer savvy), any further extension in the policy will be of very little or no use at all,” commented another realtor.