Sukhna tip of iceberg, Punjab has over 6,000 illegal colonies

No clarity on rules to blame

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*Contradictory stands by Department of Housing and Urban Development and Revenue Department has allowed illegal colonies to prosper.

*The Housing Department policy in October 2018 stated the entire housing project had to be registered instead of individual plots.

*The Revenue Department in December 2019 did away with the clause, allowing plots to be registered individually.

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 6

The Punjab and Haryana High Court order on removal of settlements in the catchment area of Sukhna Lake has once again drawn attention to the large number of illegal housing colonies in the state. The state has approximately 6,000 illegal colonies listed with the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) and Department of Local Government.

The state had about 7,000 illegal colonies in July last year when the government offered a special opening for their regularisation. Only 1,100 applied for regularisation till December 2019. These figures do not include thousands of illegal structures/ colonies that do not even qualify for regularisation because of the blatant violations.

The main reason for the haphazard development is the lack of clarity in the government rules. Contradictory stands by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Revenue Department has allowed illegal colonies to prosper. The housing department in October 2018 came up with a policy that no property could be registered without a no objection certificate (NOC) from the authorities concerned. As per the rules, the entire housing project had to be registered instead of individual plots. The Revenue Department in December 2019 did away with the clause, allowing plots to be registered individually.

Revenue Minister Gurpreet Kangar explains: “The decision to allow the registration of individual plots was taken to end harassment to individual beneficiaries in the so-called ‘illegal’ colonies. Some of these people have spent their lifetime savings in buying the property. We wanted to give them a fair deal. Yes, there are certain contradictions which need a correction. It should be mandatory to have an NOC before a project is floated. The issue needs to be worked out.”

Criticising the government decisions, president of the Punjab Colonisers and Property Dealers Association Kultar Singh Jogi said: “The government offer for regularisation will not work out successfully in its current form. Instead of charging the current rates, we are being asked to pay with retrospective effect, the rates when the projects started. This is not possible as the original developers have already left in a sizable number of projects.”

The illegal colonies will also come in the way of cities in the state acquiring the Smart City tag. “Illegal constructions would be a major hurdle to the financing of the Smart City projects of Ludhiana Jalandhar and Amritsar by the World Bank. Also, the colonies being regularised do not provide for the mandatory EWS quarters,” said Jalandhar-based RTI activist Simranjit Sidhu.

“When the rules clearly say that no illegal construction can get an electricity connection without an NOC, it is worth finding out who was giving them the connection.”