Chandigarh, January 23: Will the state government take strict action against illegal colonies identified in the special census, currently underway, that don’t qualify for regularisation because of blatant violations?
The exercise of creating an inventory of illegal colonies will throw serious administrative and political challenges some of which will have strong legal implications.
A senior officer said: “We will have an official document on illegal colonies. Procedurally speaking, these need to be demolished in case they do not fulfil the conditions after being given a chance or do not still apply for regularisation. As of now, we don’t know what will be done.”
Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu said: “The question of future of illegal structures that do not even qualify for regularisation is very important. We still have not given it a thought. Since the issue of taking action will affect a large number of people, the matter will be discussed at our party level.”
Another important question pertained to fixing the responsibility of offenders. “The land on which residential houses in illegal colonies were constructed is still in the name of farmers. Will the government register a case against the coloniser or the farmers? The issue needs a lot of clarity,” a leading builder from Ludhiana.
Sidhu said: “There has to be some uniformity. We cannot allow legal colonies with 55 per cent construction of the total area and violators with more than 80 per cent constructed area under the same law.”
“We have been given a rough count of about 6,000 illegal colonies in the state. Our reports suggest that the total will not be less than 15,000. We have commenced the exercise and it will take some time,” he said, reacting to the proposal of the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) that will submit the inventory of illegal structures, under its jurisdiction, by January 31.
At the same time, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has sent a message to the general public seeking opinion on the formulation of a policy for regularising illegal colonies. Suggestions have been sought from general public on [email protected] till January 31.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
