After Punjab scraps it, Chandigarh demands land pooling policy

A day after Punjab scrapped its land pooling policy following widespread protest and pressure from stakeholders and politicians, Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari on Tuesday demanded a similar policy for the villages falling under the UT.

However, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which governs the UT Administration, has said that neither any such policy has been formulated in the past nor there is any plan under consideration.

“The people of 22 villages in Chandigarh have been demanding for a long time that a land pooling policy must be put in place in order to ensure that lands which can no longer be utilised for agricultural purposes can be harnessed for the development of the city,” the Congress parliamentarian and former Union minister said.

Tewari said over a period of time, different political dispensations, especially the ruling one, have been giving assurances to the people of these villages that a land pooling policy is being formulated; unfortunately, like all other assurances, this has also proved to be a chimera, a mirage.

“In response to my Parliament question above, the government has made it clear that no land pooling policy is being formulated or even being contemplated,” the Congress leader said.

He said the legitimate aspirations of the residents of these 22 villages in Chandigarh are being repeatedly belied, as is the case with all other developmental initiatives pertaining to Chandigarh.

“The Chandigarh administrative and governance model requires a reset,” Tewari reiterated.

Replying to his un-starred question, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told Parliament the that Chandigarh Administration has informed the MHA that no land pooling policy has been formulated by them and neither such policy is under consideration.

Before the Punjab government ordered the withdrawal of its land pooling policy on Monday, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had also ordered an interim stay on the operation of the policy for four weeks while holding that Punjab’s policy appears to have been notified in haste and concerns, including social impact assessment and environment impact assessment, should have been addressed before its notification.