A decade on, no progress on housing plan for poor in Mohali

MOHALI: That housing for poor remains low priority for Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) is evident from the fact that even after 12 years of notifying the Punjab housing and habitat policy to build EWS houses it has yet to act upon it.

It has been more than five years now since GMADA got 230 acres of land back from 46 builders as part of the policy, but plans to build 22,000 housing units have not been framed as yet.

According to GMADA’S proposal in November last year, in the first stage, the authority will build 5,000 houses in four of its townships on about 54 acres of land: 13.49 acres in Aerocity , 17.48 acres in IT city, 3.60 acres in Ecocity-1 and 20.17 acres in Ecocity-ii. As many as seven houses will be built with four floors including the ground floor on about one acre of land with each unit sold for Rs10 lakh.

EWS POLICY REVISED THRICE IN 12 YEARS

The Punjab cabinet at a meeting in 2008 approved the policy to build EWS houses, but when private builders who were earlier meant to initiate the project did not show any inclination to go ahead with it, a decision was taken by the district administration to let GMADA take over.

The authority, which has 25 mega projects and more than 100 approved colonies under its ambit, then took possession of the land earmarked for the project from private builders.

Later in its 2013 notification, the housing and urban development department informed the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) and other such bodies that if builders failed to build EWS houses they should transfer the land to the government.

Plans were again approved in 2016 for GMADA to utilise land transferred to it by builders for other purposes and the money earned used to build EWS houses.

A senior GMADA official admitted that the venture was delayed as some private builders had not returned the land meant to the authority and now because of the lockdown work cannot be done on the project. “We are in the process of finalising the layout and other plans ,” he said

Social activist Satnam Singh Daun said it was disappointing that even after 12 years, GMADA was not ready with plans for the project. “The poor have been deprived of their houses,” he said.