17L Houses Will Be Built In Delhi

Delhi will soon get 17 lakh new houses that will be able to accommodate 76 lakh people. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has finally approved the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) ambitious plan ‘land pooling policy’. Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday announced that he has signed the land pooling policy. The policy has been hanging fire for five years. The policy covers urbanizable areas of urban extensions in 95 villages. Formulated with an aim to provide affordable housing in Delhi, the policy is also expected to trigger economic development and generate one lakh jobs. As part of the policy, DDA will act as a facilitator and planner and the process of pooling and development will be taken up by developer entities or consortiums. Sources said that DDA has received 734 suggestions on land pooling policy. According to MoHUA officials, the policy has been simplified further and DDA will now act as facilitator, regulator and planner and for the uniform distribution of land to respective landowners; DDA prepares draft policy and regulations.“A minimum two hectares of land will be required by developer entity to apply for this policy.  Each entity or land owner should have valid and lawful owner of the land parcel proposed for pooling,” the policy said.Several farmers who have made consortium to get benefit from land pooling policy, is now worried with this new regulation which make them impossible to avail the benefit.The policy further states that differential land return in two categories has been replaced with uniform division of land on 60:40 basis. The policy covers greenfield areas in five zones, including J, K-1, L, N and P-II, which come under the Master Plan of Delhi-2021 (MPD).

DDA has, however, reduced the earlier floor area ratio (FAR) of 400 to 200 in view availability of water, requirement of land for physical and social infrastructure and impact on environment. As a result, instead of the projected 24 lakh dwelling units, DDA now expects 17 lakh dwelling units to come up in areas developed under the land pooling policy.The land pooling policy was notified by the MoHUA in September 2013 while the regulations for operationalisation of the policy were approved in May 2015 by the Ministry(The Pioneer).