Land Pooling Policy, which covers the greenfield areas in five zones viz., J, K-1, L, N and P-II coming under the Master Plan of Delhi-2021, has finally been approved by the DDA.
BJP MLA Vijender Gupta confirmed that DDA’s land pooling policy has finally been approved. It was cleared at the Authority’s board meeting chaired by the LG, Anil Baijal on Friday.
The policy will now go to the UD Ministry and is likely to be notified within two to three weeks.
The work on this ambitious policy, after being stuck for a long time because of various reasons, was resumed after the pending issue of the notification of the 89 villages under the DMC Act of 1957 and declaration of 95 villages as development area of the DDA under Section 12 of Delhi Development Act of 1957, were resolved in May 2017.
Later, in October 2017, Land pooling Policy was simplified for speedy execution. DDA’s role was limited to that of a facilitator and planner as against the role initially envisaged for it. These changes were accepted later, in December, in a meeting chaired by LG on 21st.
Originally, land pooled under the policy was to be transferred to DDA. It was then supposed to undertake further sectoral planning and development of infrastructure in the pooled land. At the December meeting, it had decided to do away with this requirement. It said that land title will continue to be with the original landowners. This was to help landowners with one-side stamp duty, their concern regarding transparency and for the speedy execution of the policy.
For the implementation of the land pooling policy, public notices were published in newspapers in January. Objections, suggestions and observations or views were invited within a period of 45 days from the general public.
In all, 734 objections, suggestions and observations or views were received. A public hearing was done on modifications to the Chapter-19 of Policy and to the regulations for operationalization of Policy. A 3-day public hearing session on the proposed modifications was concluded by the board of enquiry in July 2018.
This report prepared by the board of inquiry was discussed and approved at the authority’s board meeting that was chaired by lieutenant governor Anil Baijal on Friday.
Delhi’s LG Anil Baijal on 16th of May, 2017 (Friday) approved Land Pooling villages to be declared as developed areas. This will give a big push to Delhi’s planned development and affordable housing under DDA’s ambitious Land Pooling Policy (LPP).
The villages under Delhi’s Land Pooling policy are spread over nearly 77,000 acres, of which around 50 percent land will be made available to developer entities for real estate. The development of these 95 villages will result in over 25 lakh houses in the planned areas of the city. DDA will also be responsible for sewerage, water supply, electricity supply, bus terminals etc, and also return a portion of the plot to farmers.
To many, the news came through LG’s tweet, “Approved notification of 95 villages as development areas of DDA. Push for affordable housing, social and physical infrastructure needs of Delhi (sic).”
The villages to be developed under land pooling are from Delhi’s five zones, namely, Zone K1, L, N, P-II, and J.
Per DDA’s Land Pooling policy, individuals or a group of land owners owning land in villages in above mentioned five zones, marked for land pooling, can pool their land and hand it over to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which will develop basic public infrastructure like roads, before returning a substantial portion back to the owner.
The land owners offering between 5 to 50 acres of land for development will receive 48% (43%+3%+2%) of their land back, and those who would be pooling 50 acres or more of their land would get 60% (52%+5%+3%) of their pooled land back once the development is completed.
The leftover land will be used by DDA for purposes such as infrastructure development.
After initial setbacks/hurdles, the land pooling policy is set to change the character of the rural part of Delhi.
In a meeting held by the Federation of housing societies and developers and Delhi Dehat Kisan Morcha with Delhi CM, Sh Arvind Kejriwal, on the issues regarding implementation of the Land Pooling Policy, the latter has assured that the Delhi Govt will clear the file regarding Land Pooling by May 7.
The file was stuck with the Delhi Govt since a long time now. The latest bone of contention between the center and the State government was about transfer of 10 percent of pooled land to the Delhi govt for development purposes.
Chief Minister, Sh Kejriwal, was informed about the hassles being faced by farmers because of the delay in the declaration of 89 villages as urban villages and 95 as development areas and how it was proving responsible in halting the growth in the development of the Capital.
A lot many societies, builders and individual buyers have already invested huge sums in the zones marked for development under Land Pooling Policy. Per some inputs, over 30,000 crores have already been invested in purchasing land and all that investment has been stuck because of the tug of war between Center and State governments.
The policy was notified by the Congress government on 5th of Sep, 2013 and the operationalization of the draft regulations for the same was approved on 26th of May, 2015 with five amendments. Besides, concerned units of MCD have already passed resolutions and have sent their consents to the concerned department of Delhi Government for further approvals.
The assurance from the CM has once again raised the hopes of common man who had been eagerly waiting for the last hurdles in the implementation of the policy to resolve. This would pave way for large scale development of affordable housing on the lines of Dwarka and Rohini, within the City.
Refer below link for updates in Hindi on the same.
http://epaper.bhaskar.com/detail/874123/4431510265/cph/map/tabs-1/04-04-2017/194/1/image/
In this section, we will drill deeper into the concept to understand what must be the core Infrastructure to build up a Smart city.
Frost & Sullivan have identified eight key aspects that define a Smart City:
smart governance, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart healthcare and smart citizen
We have leveraged out of it while coming up with our own list.
Good governance:
This cannot be a one-time process. First and foremost there is a need to identify metrics to define it. Suggestions need to be sought from residents and experts alike. Consolidated list, then, should be filtered out to weed out parameters which could not be measured. Whole process should be put online for everyone’s review and then the process set must be evaluated for the actions taken. This could be used as a model to make new learnings and improvise the existing system in an incremental fashion.
Education:
We are not talking about just pre-schools, schools, colleges, university(ies), training centers etc, but, about defining ways to keep all citizens educated and informed on all policies and matters, which are directly or indirectly related to them. A number of health issues can be contained beforehand if residents are updated about them through some governmental or Non-profit organization(s).
Also, there is need to upgrade the existing educational system. We will also recommend a 360 degree review system, where not just the students will get rated for the performance but teachers / professors too will need to pass through the evaluation process. This will help them know their shortcomings and at the same time put pressure on them to perform better alike students.
Health:
It should not just be about Health care but Preventive Health care. Simple living, eating healthy, regular exercises, on-time vaccinations and other preventive services could reduce burden on overall Health care services. This would allow people to live a healthy, long and stress free life.
Technology is continuously improving and could be used to record, monitor and analyze the health details of individuals; maintain medical history; and guide them periodically to avoid expected health concerns based on their and their family history.
So, in the smart cities, IOT is not just going to digitize homes and elevate experience of online shopping, but also will make health care services smarter by taking away focus from cure to prevention.
Adequate water supply
Firstly, there will be a critical need for accurate forecasting of water consumption and use by the habitants. To us, a smart city should be self sustainable in terms of its water requirement. That would mean that it should be able to re-generate water, atleast most of it, from what it consumed. This will need to be coupled with water loss management to induce smart water concept for smart cities which has become increasingly important because of rising population and water scarcity.
24 x 7 Electricity Supply:
This will need to be looked upon from two sides.
One would be to increase the electricity generation capacity keeping in mind the expected population of the city when at peak and the average requirement of an average household which must be at par with the usage in developed countries using renewable energy solutions, such as, solar, wind etc.
At the same time, enough attention needs to be devoted in researching better technologies to reduce energy consumption by the commonly used devices. A good example to this is the transformation from the filament bulbs to CFL to LED.
Sanitation and cleanliness:
Everything in a smart city will need to be developed with sustainability at its core. Physical infrastructure would need to be developed for things like Solid waste management and proper disposal of garbage. What could be recycled should be recycled and rest should be treated in the most environmental-friendly manner possible.
Besides, enlightening citizens on the subject would be a major challenge. We would need to work with the people to make them aware about the importance of sanitation and cleanliness. Also, initial level of waste segregation will have to be done at the source itself and people will need to be guided on that too.
Transportation:
Transportation to humans is what internet is to computers. This will further break down to two major sub segments, i.e., Public and Private Transportation.
Isn’t this the right time to start thinking of reducing our dependence on transportation powered by fossil fuel? Yes!! It is time to start switching to e(lectronic)-Transportation. They are expensive as of now but with more manufacturers jumping in and a mass transition catalyzed by governmental mandate could make that affordable to the common people.
This should be complimented by an efficient and robust public transport system comprising of Metro Trains, electric trams, AC buses etc, coupled with pedestrian walkways and cycling lanes. A well knit transport network could ensure jam free traffic on roads and will have minimal participation in causing pollution.
Housing:
Real estate, let it be residential or commercial development, is both the cause and result of smart cities in some way. A smart city should have well planned, good quality and affordable housing solutions for all, at its core. Simultaneously, since there will always be a workforce in the lower and lower-middle group segment, provisions should be made for residential units and low budget markets for these people belonging to economically weaker section.
Healthy and Sustainable environment:
This could be achieved with effective use of renewable resources and minimizing dependence on fossil fuels. Green norms should be made a mandatory part of all planning, let it be for housing, transportation or any other entity.
Optimal digitization and Robust IT connectivity:
Wherever feasible, processes / services much be knit together with information technology. Internet speed in India has started to catch up with the rest of the world and new systems can be planned keeping in mind that it is going to get better in the coming years. We are expecting 5G in another 4 to 5 years time which would leave us with unending possibilities and applications. Cyber-security will assume an important role.
Safety and security:
Though, this in itself is a vast topic and is of utmost importance, we will stick to just a few concerns that should amicably be made part of this final chapter:
There were some more points which crossed our mind, but we will keep them for some other time.
Below are the links to the earlier parts of the series.
http://www.koncreteplanet.com/article/smart-cities-exploring-future-part-1/
http://www.koncreteplanet.com/article/smart-cities-exploring-future-part-2/