Should residents of Sainik Farms pay higher penalty?

Should the residents of upscale unauthorised colonies like Sainik Farms, Anant Ram Dairy and Mahendru Enclave, where half of the plots are above 350 sq m, be charged a higher rate for regularisation or penalty?

The Delhi government has been asked to share its view on this crucial question by the central government which is seized of the matter of studying a proposal on regularisation for 1,797 unplanned colonies which are home to nearly 60 lakh people. 

The AAP government has also been asked to suggest any other different yardstick that needs to be adopted while regularising the upscale unauthorised colonies and others.

The Revenue Department has started collecting details on the upscale colonies along with collating information related to plot sizes in all the unauthorised colonies in the city.

“The Urban Development department of the Delhi government has communicated with the Revenue officials for the collection of data sought by the central government,” said an official.

There is no time limit set for the task as the exercise would be time-consuming, said an official.

The central government has sought about two dozen clarifications and additional information from the Delhi government on individual plots in all the illegal colonies.

Some  of the information sought by the central government, in a letter written by Union Urban Development Ministry’s Under Secretary Sunil Kumar to Delhi Chief Secretary K K Sharma, includes: Name of the colony, total area, population, whether on government land, number of plots in each colony, colony survey report, satellite image of the total area, what percentage of the total colony area is built-up, under which civic agency’s jurisdictional area does the colony fall and plot size of each house in each colony.

In a proposal sent to the Union government, the AAP government wants low regularisation charge and penalty on  colonies which come under “F, G and H” catergories and house poor residents.

However, the central government now wants to know how would the concessional
regularisation rate for these poor colonies will be compensated.

The central government wants to know who would bear the financial burden of carrying out development works in the “D, E, F,G and H” category poor colonies.

 In most other colonies, the proposal is to make the residents of the colonies pay for the development work and legal tag that the colony would get.

The Arvind Kejriwal government  had proposed to regularise all unauthorised colonies which came up till Janualry 2015 and sent a propsoals to the central government six months ago.