This Friday, on 30th September, Federation of Housing Societies and Developers under the banner of Delhi Dehat Vikas Munch, staged yet another demonstration, this time on Parliament Street, near Jantar Mantar to urge DDA, LG, State and Central government to find an early resolution to the stalled Land Pooling Policy.
The policy was notified in Sep, 2013; and the guidelines for operationalisation of it were approved by the Urban Development Ministry on May 26, 2015 with five amendments. Following which, the then DDA Vice-Chairman, Balvinder Kumar, had said, “The ball is in the Delhi government’s court”.
The actual implementation of the policy hinges on the state 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.
Delhi govt had demanded 12-15% from the pooled land for carrying out development projects. DDA, on the other hand, after considering the Delhi govt’s demand, had found it infeasible to be met.
No visible signs of negotiations on this from either side forced farmers and other stakeholders to hold a protest. They tried to bring attention of all agencies and common man towards the bright side of the policy and how is it going to have a very positive impact on everyone’s life. Stating that, they urged all to have a look at the issue with a sense of urgency.
Land Pooling Policy is based on public-private partnership model and seeks to make landowners partners in the development of zones. It is divided into two categories: (I) for land measuring 50 acres and above; and (II) for 5 acres to less than 50 acres. In the first category, the developer entity will have around 60 percent share, while DDA will retain 40 percent. In the second category, DDA will retain 52 per cent while rest will go to developer entity.