Welcoming the Union cabinet’s move to regularise unauthorised colonies in the capital, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday said that Delhi government could start the process of registering the properties as soon as the Bill was cleared by Parliament in the winter session.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday evening, Kejriwal said that the AAP government would set up special camps in illegal colonies to register the properties as soon as the Centre issued a notification.
People will get the actual benefit of the Centre’s announcement only when they get the property registration papers in their hands. Until then, people may think this is yet another effort to woo them before the elections. The revenue department will set up camps in the colonies and the process will be completed as early as possible,” the CM said.
According to an estimate, the revenue department will have to register about 18 lakh properties (calculated on the basis of electricity connections in 1,797 illegal colonies) once the regularisation notification is issued.
The properties in unauthorised colonies initially changed hands on the basis of general power of attorney (GPA). After the government banned registering GPAs, sources said people sealed deals on stamp papers attested by notaries.
Sources, however, said that conferring ownership rights might not start until DDA delineated the boundaries of each colony and finalises maps identifying the houses and public amenities such as roads, parks and community facilities. This could take a couple of years.
Kejriwal cautioned that carrying out a fresh survey of colonies to define their boundaries would take time. He proposed that the boundaries could initially be identified through geo-spatial digital maps, which are ready.
“In our suggestion sent in July, we had said that the registration of properties should be started on the on the basis of satellite maps prepared by Geospatial Delhi Limited (GSDL) to speed up the process. The detailed maps could be prepared alongside,” the CM said.
He added that the roadmap for regularisation of colonies was based on a proposal sent by Delhi government in November 2015. The Centre had sent a draft cabinet note in July, which the AAP government resent within 4-5 days with 12 suggestions.
“We had proposed that the cut-off date for regularisation should be March 31, 2019 instead of January 1, 2015. We had also proposed that all colonies falling beyond the Yamuna bund should be regularised even if they were falling in O-zone. Another proposal was to leave out only that part of a colony which was on forest land or in ASI-protected areas and regularise the rest. We will have to see how many of our proposals have actually been accepted,” Kejriwal said.
The government’s suggestion for implementing the same parameters of regularisation on affluent colonies was rejected by the Centre, the chief minister added.
The CM said that people used to stay in these colonies in very difficult conditions before AAP came to power. “We have invested Rs 6,000 crore in the past five years in unauthorised colonies, particularly on infrastructure for water, sewage, drainage and streets. It was a long struggle for AAP and the residents for regularisation of unauthorised colonies. We are happy that it is finally happening and we thank the Centre for that,” he added.
