Punjab: Affordable housing scheme to roll out soon
Rajmeet Singh
Chandigarh, December 29
The much-delayed affordable housing scheme of the Local Government, covering all civic bodies across the state, is expected to be out soon.
Before the final policy is tabled in the Cabinet meeting, a draft of the changes has been sent to Chief Secretary Anurag Verma, as it involves financial implications to the state ex-chequer. The Chief Secretary also holds the charge of Secretary, Housing and Urban Development.
A senior government functionary said the policy has already been discussed with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. Since it involved financial implications, the Department of Housing and Urban Development had been taken on board. Aimed at discouraging illegal colonisation, the scheme aims at giving incentives to the promoters. As per official figures, over 15,000 illegal colonies exist across the state with the maximum within the limits of civic bodies.
Tweaked along the lines of the Urban Housing Department scheme announced in March this year, the scheme aims to do away with the minimum 1.5 acre requirement for a plotted residential colony, minimum buffer zone for colonies having more than 10 acres and space for garbage collection, among other incentives.
Other issues being touched in the scheme are 50 per cent reduction in development charges, percentage of land reserved for the community area, calculation of the saleable area, reservation for economically weaker section and area reserved for green parks. The scheme assumes significance as only 25 per cent of the population in the state lives in sanctioned colonies within MC limits.
The Housing Department in its scheme had offered major incentives like reduction in the licence fee, CLU and EDC by 50 per cent in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar.
