The Indian Express 28.08.2012
Regularisation of 917 illegal colonies to be notified today
45 resettlement colonies will be regularised
The Union Urban Development Ministry on Monday paved the way for the Delhi government to begin regularising unauthorised colonies in the national Capital.
The ministry approved the regularisation of 917 colonies after a meeting between Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Monday. Dikshit plans to notify it on Tuesday.
Delhi Urban Development Minister Dr A K Walia said: “The Union ministry has cleared the regularisation of 917 unauthorised colonies, which we will notify on Tuesday. We will now begin the process of vetting the remaining unauthorised colonies in Delhi.”
He said 45 resettlement colonies, which came up in the 1970s, would also be regularised. This would help more than 10 lakh people, he said.
The Delhi High Court had issued notices to the Union and Delhi governments last week over the regularisation process following a petition that sought to challenge the government’s authority to regularise such colonies.
When his comments were sought on this, Walia said: “We spoke to the Union ministry about the High Court directions and they have asked us to go ahead.”
It was in the run-up to the assembly elections in 2008 that Dikshit had promised to regularise more then 1, 600 unauthorised colonies. However, after distributing “provisional” certificates them, the government had made no progress in granting amnesty till now.
Dikshit led a delegation to the Union Urban Development Ministry on Monday, which included Walia, cabinet colleague Arvinder Singh Lovely, Parliamentary Secretary Mukesh Sharma and Chief Secretary P K Tripathi.
After the Congress’s dismal showing in the April Delhi municipal polls this year, Dikshit had directed all government departments to fast-track the regularisation process with assembly elections slated for 2013.
Earlier this month, the Delhi government had cleared the way for 917 colonies after clearances for regularisation were granted by the Forest department, the MCD, the ASI, the Revenue department and the DDA. These clearances were sent to the Union government.
The government had also requested the Union Urban Development Ministry to issue new guidelines for regularisation of the remaining colonies as well as affluent colonies like Sainik Farms, Anant Ram Dairy and Mahendru Enclave. Sources said the ministry has approved the proposals and would draw up new guidelines shortly.
