Suggestions from public have been received and are being examined.
Land pooling in Delhi, which is expected to meet the residential needs of about 95 lakh people besides stimulating economic growth, will be in place by end of April this year, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) vice chairman Udai Pratap Singh has said.
“We have received a lot of suggestions and we hope that by end of April, this will be in place,” he told reporters.
“We will now have a board of hearing, we will hear all the suggestions, whatever is possible as per law that will be done. People have given their comments and those are being examined. After examination of those suggestions, public hearing will be given and after that it will be discussed at the Authority’s meeting and after approval of the Authority it will be sent to the government for notification. That is the process,” he said.
In December last year, the policy was simplified for speedy execution. DDA was to act as a facilitator and planner as against the role initially envisaged for it as a part of simplification of execution of land pooling policy. The last date for receiving objections and suggestions from the public was February 24.
Originally, land pooled under the policy was to be transferred to DDA which was to act as the Developer Entity (DE) and undertake further sectoral planning and development of infrastructure in the pooled land. At the December meeting it had decided to do away with this requirement and said that land title will continue to be with the original land owners.
DDA was also asked to ensure single-window clearance mechanism for according necessary approvals for speedy implementation.
Land Pooling Policy covers the greenfield areas in five zones viz., J, K-1, L, N and P-II coming under the Master Plan of Delhi-2021. To incentivise dense development for effective utilisation of scarce land resource in the national capital, the policy permits enhanced FAR of 400 as against the present 150. To promote affordable housing, an additional FAR of 15 percent is also allowed.
About 22,000 hectares of land is expected to be pooled which could meet the needs of about 95 lakh people. Land pooling would catalyse economic, social and civic development of the national capital besides triggering substantial investments and employment generation.
Under the Land Pooling Policy, 60 percent of pooled land would be returned to land owners after infrastructure development.
Affordable houses for economically weaker sections to be built under the policy shall be of the size of 32-40 sq mt. Half of this housing stock shall be retained by the Developer Entity to house Community Service People working for the residents/owners of the Group Housing. These houses will be built at the site or at premises contiguous to the site allotted. The other half of affordable houses shall be sold to DDA at the base cost of Rs 2,000 per sq ft for further sale to beneficiaries.
Experts say that DDA doesn’t seem to have the in-house expertise to master plan such a large land mass. It should revisit the earlier global Request for Proposals (RFP) to invite global organisations to design modern and smart zonal plans.
The main challenges before DDA are three fold – what will the actual operationalisation mechanism be like – the process of re-allotment (how will the 60 per cent land be returned to the developer), when will spatial and services planning be initiated by DDA for the five zones and finally how will it put in place infrastructure and manpower to provide the last mile connect with people – will it put in place a blockchain-based technology support for land pooling etc.
”DDA doesn’t have the last mile connect and infrastructure to handle the physical operationalisation of land pooling. Multiple agencies like DJB, MCD, etc. have to be roped in, and policy interventions to be made immediately to augment the infrastructure needs of these proposed smart zones. Do not repeat the mistakes of Rohini and Dwarka,” says Ramesh Menon of Certes Realty.
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