Land pooling can solve housing issues

ACCORDING TO THE MODIFIED LAND POOLING POLICY, NOW THE DEVELOPERS WILL GET 60% OF THE LAND WHILE THE DDA WILL KEEP ONLY 40% OF IT

NEWDELHI: Getting a dream house in the national capital at an affordable price will no longer be a distant dream for residents if t he Delhi Development Authority (DDA) formally rolls out its ‘land pooling policy’.

Discussing various state led mechanisms to acquire, plan and service land for urbanisation, experts at the WRI Connect Karo event cited the example of the land pooling scheme of Amravati. “In Amravati, privately owned land parcels are legally consolidated by transfer of ownership rights to a government authority for public purpose reservations as designated in the master plan. Participation in the scheme is voluntary. However, land reserved for capital city area development could be taken compulsorily, if negotiations fail,” said Rejeet Mathews of WRI, who has co-authored a paper on different state-led mechanisms to acquire land for urbanisation.

In Delhi’s land pooling policy, the DDA originally planned to keep 52% of land while 48% was given to developers.

However, this irked real estate developers. Besides, it did not benefit farmers much to whom the land belonged. But, according to the modified policy, now the developers will get 60% of the land while DDA will keep only 40% of it.

For this DDA, in January this year, asked for general public’s advice and suggestions. The authority in a notification invited objections or suggestions with respect to the proposed modifications in the policy.

The policy was notified by the ministry of urban development in September 2013 while the regulations for operationalisation of the policy were approved in May 2015 by the ministry.