89 'unbanised' villages to get 'development areas' tag soon

The AAP government today said it would notify as 'development areas' the 89 villages which it recently declared as urban area within one week.
The statement comes two days after Lt Governor Anil Baijal approved the Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) Land- Pooling Policy (LPP).
Delhi's Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain said there are two stage of implementing Land-Pooling Policy: declaration of rural villages as 'urbanised' and then as 'development areas'.
Once the villages, declared "urbanised" on May 16, are notified as 'development areas', the DDA and the Delhi government will be able to carry out infrastructure projects there.
"The Delhi government will notify as development areas the 89 villages that were declared as urban areas two days ago," he said.

Under the LPP, government agencies will develop infrastructure like roads, schools, hospitals, community centres, stadia on part of the pooled land and return a portion of the plot to the farmer who can later on execute housing projects with the help of private builders.

Jain said around 20-25 lakh housing units will come up in these urbanised villages in the next 5-10 years and this will ensure properties are available at affordable rates.
The main feature of the policy, according to Jain, is that housing projects could be developed by builders on the returned agricultural land of farmers.
Earlier, building housing units on agricultural land of these 89 villages was not allowed as the LPP was not in place.

According to the government, if 50 acre and above of land is pooled by the DDA, the land-owning agency will have to return 60 per cent of pooled land to farmers.
In case the land pooled in 5 acres, the DDA will have to return 48 per cent of the land.
As per DDA estimates, building 2.5 lakh houses, including 50,000 EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) units, will require 1,000 hectare of land.
Jain said that as per rough estimates, there are 77,000 acres of land in urban villages across the city and out of this, around 40,000 acres will be developed as 'development areas'.

However, the actual quantum of 'development areas' land will only be known once the notification is issued under Section 12 of the DDA Act.
With 89 villages being declared as urbanised, the number of such villages in the city has gone to around 95.
Jain said that border villages will not come up under the Land-Pooling policy.
The policy's implementation assumes significance as the DDA's Master Plan Delhi (MPD) 2021 proposes construction of 25 lakh housing units by 2021 for which 10,000 hectares of land will be required.