New Delhi: Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated development work ranging from Piped Natural Gas (PNG) connections to essential infrastructure worth Rs 383 crore in 178 urbanised villages in Delhi last month.
These projects have been sanctioned under the ‘Dilli Gramodaya Abhiyan’, launched by Delhi Lieutenant Governor V.K. Saxena in December last year, to utilise the Rs 960-crore fund “lying unused with the revenue department of the Delhi government for many years,” according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on 11 March.
While village residents welcomed the initiative, they questioned the delay in implementing two crucial land reforms — the land pooling policy and the Green Development Area (GDA) policy — that would have benefited them and also unlocked hectares of land parcel for planned development of Delhi.
The land pooling policy, which would be implemented in 100 plus villages, will help unlock 20,000 hectares of land parcels on the outskirts of Delhi — paving the way for the construction of over 17 lakh dwelling units to meet the city’s increasing housing demand.
The GDA policy, on the other hand, will be implemented in 70 plus villages — paving the way for regulated, planned development in peripheral and low-density development area villages (mostly where farmhouses have come up).
Both, the land pooling policy — which was first notified during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s tenure in 2013 and later by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2018 — and the GDA policy, which was placed in the public domain in 2021, are pending before the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
According to Bhupinder Bazad, a resident of Hiranki village in North West Delhi and president of the Delhi Master Plan Committee of Delhi Dehat Vikas Manch, “these two land reforms are the need of the hour”.
“We need basic infrastructure projects, such as sewers etc, but we want immediate implementation of these land reform policies as it impacts our income,” he told ThePrint.
He added, “We have been waiting for nearly a decade for the land pooling policy to get the right value of our land, as income from agricultural activity is not enough in Delhi. The delay has also led to the mushrooming of unauthorised colonies in these villages.”
In the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the village vote plays a decisive role, especially in West Delhi and North West Delhi parliamentary constituencies. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won twice these seats in the previous two elections with huge margins.
The initiative by Delhi LG, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders said, is nothing but an attempt to discredit CM Arvind Kejriwal and the work done by his government. They also questioned the delay in major developmental policies, which are pending with the central government.
Meanwhile, hitting out at the AAP, the BJP claimed that development had come to a standstill in these villages under the Kejriwal government, and the fact the Rs 960 crore was lying “unspent for nearly nine years,” is proof of it.
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Land pooling crucial to meet housing demand
Last year, Union Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri informed the Lok Sabha that “when the land pooling will be finalised, it will cover something like 20,000 hectares in 138 sectors, and another 70 lakh people will benefit from that”.
Under this, agricultural land in 100-plus villages in Delhi will be used for development projects, including housing, through the voluntary pooling of land parcels by landowners.
Policy analysts and real estate experts said the policy is important for meeting the increasing housing requirement in the city.
According to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) — which, for decades, has been the only developer in the national capital — it has constructed over “four lakh” houses in Delhi to date.
The land pooling policy will pave the way for the construction of over 17 lakh dwelling units in Delhi, according to a statement by the Delhi LG office in 2018.
Ramesh Menon, founding partner, Delhi Consortiums, a think tank on Delhi Urban development, told ThePrint, “To meet the current demographic demand, it is incumbent on the policymakers to make a conducive ecosystem to create a supply surge, especially, through the private sector.”
Menon added that land pooling and GDA are well-intentioned steps in that direction.
“Multiplicity of agencies in Delhi coupled with a lack of domain knowledge and political will have resulted in a loss of time. Notification of MPD-2041 would bring momentum to the launch of projects in Delhi, thereby affecting the overheated markets in the surrounding cities,” he told ThePrint.
Under the GDA policy, which impacts close to 70 villages, regulated development, sports facilities, non-polluting industries, educational institutions, etc., will be allowed in villages.
Village residents told ThePrint that the delay in the implementation of these policies has impacted the land rates in these villages. “When the land pooling policy was announced, there was excitement and property prices had increased. But the delay in implementation clubbed with uncertainty about when it will be operationalised has led to a drop in land rates,” highlighted Pradeep Dagar, a resident of Dhansa village near Najafgarh.
Dagar added that, in neighbouring Haryana, where property rates till a few years ago used to be less than Delhi, have skyrocketed due to a quick implementation of policies.
“Why should we pay the price for the delay?” he asked.
AAP vs BJP
The BJP has been out of power in the Delhi government for nearly 26 years. In the past decade, the party has suffered crushing defeats in the consecutive assembly elections in 2015 and 2020, despite being in power at the Centre.
However, the party has been proactively involved in Delhi’s development through central agencies, such as the DDA.
According to AAP leaders, sanctioning of development works in villages last month is yet another way to take credit for the work done by the AAP-led Delhi government.
AAP leader Somnath Bharti, the party’s candidate from New Delhi constituency and member of DDA told ThePrint, “The BJP is trying to usurp the power, which people of Delhi refused to give them, illegally through the backdoor. Through these initiatives, they are trying to mislead people by showing that the Delhi CM is not working for them.”
He added: “But the fact is that it is the Centre, which has been delaying the development work in Delhi. It is yet to notify the implementation of important development policies, such as land pooling and GDA, which would have led to planned development in Delhi. Even the Master Plan of Delhi-2041 is yet to be finalised.”
Hitting out at Bharati, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said that people have been demanding basic infrastructure for years now in these villages. “Why was over Rs 960 crore meant for village development lying unspent till now? People have been deprived of basic infrastructure and had no say in the development of their villages. We had raised the matter with Delhi LG, who proactively got projects worth Rs 400 crore sanctioned.”
The BJP leader admitted that land pooling is an important policy, but said major changes are being made to make it “public-friendly”.
“In the past, the policy when implemented didn’t get the desired response from the land owners, who had expressed concerns about some clauses. The policy is being reworked and will be notified soon. But in the meantime, Delhi LG has taken proactive measures to address the concerns of people,” said Sachdeva.
Moreover, the BJP leaders highlighted that in the past few years, the central government has come out with various measures for the welfare of Delhi residents, such as the PM-UDAY scheme, which grants ownership rights to residents of unauthorised colonies, in situ slum redevelopment, and the Plan of Delhi-2021, which was introduced to address the issues faced by traders and prevent the sealing of markets and warehouses.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)