The Union Cabinet has taken a major decision on illegal colonies of Delhi on Wednesday. The cabinet has decided to regularize illegal colonies pending for 11 years.
This decision of the Center will directly benefit millions of people living in illegal colonies.
Giving this information in a press conference on Wednesday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the cabinet has taken a historic decision keeping in mind the 40-50 lakh people living in illegal colonies of Delhi.
In a press conference, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, while targeting the Aam Aadmi Party government of Delhi, said that the Delhi government had identified these colonies and sought time till 2021 to work on them. The Center itself decided to regularize these colonies in view of their poor attitude.
He said that the population living in irregular colonies have to face all kinds of problems. The people living there are also deprived of basic facilities, so the Center has decided to give ownership to the people living there. With this, those people will be able to take their land from purchase to sale and loan.
Along with this, the Union Minister also said that, since the people living in these colonies belong to the lower income group, their land rates will be fixed on the basis of their annual income. In deciding the rate, it will also be checked what the current circle rate of the land being traded at. He said that 1797 colonies have been identified by the Central Government for regularization. These exclude forest department land, protected land and 69 other identified colonies.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal while welcoming the decision of the Center said that this is a very old demand of the people of Delhi. We welcome this decision and I want to thank the Central Government for this step on behalf of the public.
Earlier in July itself, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced to start the process of regularizing these colonies. He had said that this would directly benefit the population of about 60 lakhs. After regularization, colonies will be able to have a registry. People will get ownership of their house.
He had stated that on November 2, 2015, the Delhi Cabinet passed a resolution to regularize the colonies. On November 12, this proposal was sent to the central government, which was agreed by the central government in the past.