89 URBANISED VILLAGES SOON TO BE DECLARED ‘DEVELOPMENT AREAS’

Delhi Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain made the announcement after Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal approved the DDA’S Land Pooling Policy

NEW DELHI: Paving the way for affordable housing, the Delhi government will declare 89 villages as ‘development areas’, allowing the Delhi Development Authority to implement Land Pooling Policy (LPP), Delhi Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday.

Jain made the announcement after Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal approved the DDA’S LPP.

After the approval of the LPP for the 89 villages, the Delhi government will not need to buy land from DDA to develop facilities such as electrical sub-stations, stadia, industrial areas, old-age homes, hostels, schools, etc.

Talking to reporters here, Jain said the government notified 89 villages of Delhi as ‘urbanised villages’ on Tuesday, while six others had already been declared urbanised.

The portion of the land which will be returned to the owners will have its value increased due to the development of infrastructure nearby.

Sultanpur Dabas, Bazidpur Takran, Mukhmelpur, Neb Sarai, Baprola, Bakkarwala, Goela Khurd, Neelwal, Salahpur Majra are among the ‘urbanised’ villages which have been declared as development areas by the Aap-led Delhi government.

Jain said the move would clear the decks for construction of around 20-25 lakh homes on around 40,000 acre of land over the next 5-10 years in Delhi, thereby making them more affordable for end users.

“In the next couple of days, we would declare these villages as ‘development area’ under Section 12 of the DDA Act. Soon after that, the DDA would be able to go ahead with the Land Pooling Policy,” he said.

Under the policy, land owners in the villages can pool their land together and give it to the DDA.

The Authority would return 48 to 60 percent of the developed land back to them, Jain said. He added that the rest of the land would be used to build parks, roads, schools and other public facilities. “The returned land would be used by the owners only for building multistoreyed flats which would provide affordable housing to the people of Delhi.”

The LPP is aimed at getting individuals or a group of landowners – living in urban villages on Delhi’s periphery – to pool their land and hand it over to the DDA. Jain said the DDA had also agreed to give land free of cost to the Delhi government for building schools, hospitals and other public facilities.

Out of the 89 urbanised villages, 50 are located in north Delhi and 39 in south Delhi.