Dengue effect : Regularisation of 243 illegal colonies mooted

The dengue outbreak has proved to be a boon for unauthorised colonies of city. The district administration and state government are now mulling over a proposal to regularise 243 colonies to save them from epidemics in future. A proposal in this regard is expected in the next house meeting of LMC and board meeting of LDA.

The Lucknow Municipal Corporation and LDA don’t offer any civic amenities in unauthorised colonies. The sanitation workers don’t clean these areas and solid waste management of these colonies is not proper. Some of the colonies don’t have a proper drainage system , so stagnant water turns into a breeding place for mosquitoes, maximizing chances of outbreak of epidemics.

Last year, Delhi had also regularised more than 800 unauthorised colonies to provide them basic amenities which were denied to them because they were not recognised.

If sources are to be believed, the Uttar Pradesh government has also decided to put the process of regularisation of uanuthorised colonies on track.

However the proposal of taking over Hind Nagar, Narayanpuri, Chinhat, Marutipuram, Brahmapuri, Lakshmanpuri, Indrapuri, Draupadi Vihar, Ambika Vihar, Ashiana, Faizullahganj, Kalyanpur and Para is pending for the past two years due to paucity of funds and lack of will of the departments concerned. Consequently, more than 10 lakh people living in these colonies are suffering despite paying heavily to the colonizers.

In addition to this, there are more than 100 colonies in the periphery of Lucknow, which are coming up without the approval of layout by LDA.

An official of the housing department said that state government had given indications to simplify and relax norms for regularisation of unauthorised colonies, as the rigid rules of the state and development authorities and municipalities were obstructing legal status to these colonies. According to information,now the state government has decided to be more flexible in this regard.

LDA VC Anup Yadav has already indicated that he is ready to be flexible with regularisation of colonies. Municipal commissioner Udairaj Singh has given a similar indication. The LMC is already providing civic amenities in colonies like Ashaiana which are yet to be handed over to it.

However, the major problem is not the 240 existing unauthorised colonies but other mushrooming colonies around Lucknow. Maps have not been approved by LDA but the colonisers are selling plots to people by giving them wrong information.

Municipal commissioner Udairaj Singh said unauthorised colonies were a big nuisance as most of the water logging and other civic problems were reported from there. Some of these colonies virtually turned into ponds and residents were exposed to epidemics, he said.