Punjab govt clears housing and urban development policy

The Punjab government today approved a housing and urban development policy which has a major thrust on ensuring affordable housing to the weaker sections of the society.
The Housing and Urban Development, Punjab-2013' was approved at a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal here, an official spokesman said.
The new policy would also focus on rationalisation of norms for the housing projects thereby making the procedures far simpler and time bound, he said.
The policy incorporates the issues of rationalised development controls, common buildings rules, incentives for construction of affordable houses and green buildings, procedures and time lines of approval of various projects and rationalisation of potential zones, density and charges.

The policy emphasised on the need to evolve a mechanism by including a two new policies of 'Land Pooling' and 'Land Owners become Partner in Development' to avoid any inordinate delay due to cumbersome process of land acquisition.
"These policies were aimed at acquiring land easily for the urban development projects for the benefit of both government as well as the land owners," the spokesman said.
In another decision, decks were cleared for setting up of the Directorate of Maize Research in the state with the Cabinet approving transfer of 100 hectares of land in Ladowal near Ludhiana, free of cost to the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR).

The step is aimed at giving a major thrust to the much needed agriculture diversification programme in Punjab. This endeavor would also help in development of new hybrid and high yielding varieties of maize thereby improving the income of farmers substantially.