'Land pooling implementation hinges on Delhi govt's decision'

The actual implementation of the Land Pooling Policy of the DDA now hinges on Delhi government's decision on declaring 95 villages in the city as development area and 89 of them as urban villages, the housing authority today said.
Delhi government has been requested to issue notifications in this regard, DDA Vice-Chairman Balvinder Kumar said.
"We have requested the Delhi government to declare the 95 villages as development area and 89 villages as 'urban villages'. Both these requests are pending with the government in advanced stages. We hope it will soon issue the notification on it," Kumar told reporters here.

"As soon as we get it (notification), actual implementation will start in next couple of months and we will issue the deed in this regard," he said.
Both these provisions will help DDA in implementing its Land Pooling Policy. The 'urban village' status to 89 villages will nullify the provisions of Delhi Reforms Act governing them, he said.
The Union Urban Development Ministry today approved the regulations for operationalisation of Land Pooling Policy of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) with five amendments.

The policy is applicable in the proposed urbanisable areas of the urban extensions for which zonal plans have been approved.

"We will announce dates for submitting applications for participating in land pooling after the Delhi government's notification. We will follow month-wise priority meaning if land pooling is opened for six months, the applicants of first month will get priority. This will encourage greater participation and better locations for early applicants", he added.
The DDA also said that it will hire services of agencies to create awareness about its Land Pooling Policy.
"We will hire agencies that will visit villages to create awareness about participation in this policy and tell farmers how they will be benefitted by it. The agencies will also be employed for documentation work," he said

The DDA's Master Plan Delhi (MPD) 2021 proposes construction of 25 lakh housing units by 2021 for which 10,000 hectare of land will be required. As per DDA estimates, 2.5 lakh houses, including 50,000 EWS units, will require 1000 hectare of land.
Relief to small farmers, self-penalty on DDA for delays, and flexibility allowed to farmers to trade their land or tie up with developers for land pooling were some of the most important features of the Land Pooling Policy, he said.
The policy seeks to make landowners partners in the development and is divided into two categories of pooling -- Category I for land 20 ha and above and Category II for 2 ha to less than 20 ha.

In the first category, the developer entity will share 60 per cent while DDA will retain 40 per cent. In the second category, DDA will retain 52 per cent while rest will go to developer entity.