Chandigarh, March 7: The government finally knows how many illegal colonies the state has: 7,000. The figure has been arrived after compilation of data separately by the Punjab Planning and Urban Development Authority (PUDA) and the Department of Local Government. The first ever exercise of its kind was initiated following a Cabinet decision in December last year.
PUDA has listed approximately 4,400 illegal colonies, while the remaining a little over 2,900 are located in the areas under the jurisdiction of the local bodies.
Local government areas, except municipal corporations, included 782 illegal colonies in Patiala followed by Jalandhar (422) and Amritsar (390).
Jalandhar with a count of 309 recorded maximum illegal colonies within municipal limits of a city followed Hoshiarpur (158) and Ludhiana (134). Among PUDA-governed areas, Greater Ludhiana Area development Authority (GLADA) led the number of illegal settlements with 1,930 followed by Patiala Development Authority (775), Jalandhar Development Authority (740) and Amritsar Development Authority (461).
“At the suggested charges of an average Rs 7 lakh per acre for allowing regularisation, we are eyeing substantial revenue out of the exercise currently being finalised by a special committee. Each residential quarter seeking regularisation will have to pay separate charges as well,” a senior officer said.
The draft proposal for the government policy will come up for a final discussion soon in front of a special committee comprising Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, Technical Education Minister Charanjit Channy, Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa.
Sources said it had been underlined that no more irregular colonies would be regularised in future. Instead, FIRs would be lodged against the defaulters. More importantly, there was a strong move to incorporate a provision to take serious action against officers in whose areas illegal colonies come up.
The proposed policy has provided for the resident welfare associations to apply for registration of their habitation.
Regularisation will be allowed in four different categories — houses built up to 25 per cent of the approved area; between 25 per cent and 50 per cent; above 50 per cent; and the last category of exempted units.
