Protest over delay in implementation of Land Pooling Policy

Members of a housing society body today held a protest here over delay in implementation of the crucial Land Pooling Policy, and appealed to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to expedite it.
Under the banner of Federation of Housing Societies and Developers in Delhi, scores of people, held a sit-in on the Parliament Street, which briefly affected the flow of traffic.
"Land Pooling Policy will benefit and give people affordable housing. We appeal to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to expedite its implementation," a member of the federation said.
The Lt Governor is also the Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority.

DDA has not been able to make any headway in implementing the policy, as it still awaits the notification by Delhi government declaring several villages as development areas or urban villages.
The Union Urban Development Ministry had on May 26 last year approved the regulations for operationalisation of the policy with five amendments following which the then Vice-Chairman of DDA Balvinder Kumar had said, "The ball is in Delhi government's court".

The actual implementation of the policy hinges on the city government's decision on declaring 95 villages as development areas and 89 of them as urban villages. The housing authority had earlier requested to it to issue a notification in this regard.

Land Pooling 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 have 60 per cent share, while DDA will retain 40 per cent. In the second category, DDA will retain 52 per cent while rest will go to developer.
The policy is applicable in the proposed "urbanisable" areas of the urban extensions for which zonal plans have been approved. The 'urban village' status to 89 villages will nullify the provisions of Delhi Reforms Act governing them.

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. As per DDA estimates, 2.5 lakh houses, including 50,000 EWS units, will require 1,000 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 are some of the important features of the Land Pooling Policy.