CENTRE APPROVES LAND POOLING POLICY

 New Delhi, Delhi will soon get 17 Lakh new houses that will be able to accommodation 76 lakh people. The Delhi development Authority’s DDA ambitious but much delayed Land pooling policy was finally approved on Friday in the Authority’s board meeting chaired by Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal.  The Delhi Development Authority’s land pooling policy , which is expected needs of about 95 lakh people besides stimulating economic growth , has finally been approved  BJP MLA  Vijender Gupta  has confirmed.

DDA vice chairman Udai Pratap Singh said the policy was stalled for different reasons, but the process would restart in the next four to five weeks “A board of hearing is going on “He said, A Swaraj India delegation met Singh on Friday . The delegation claimed they were assured by Singh that all farmers would be able to take advantage of land pooling irrespective of landholding size, provided 70% of them agreed in a cluster. Earlier in March, a Parliamentary panel had pulled up DDA for the delay in finalising the policy, five years after it was notified.

As a matter of fact direct acquisition of land is not possible due to continuously increasing price as well as land owners always complaint for less compensation. In order to make way for this difficult situation, government has brought up land pooling policies to boost faster development. High floor area ratio (FAR) and a single-window mechanism are two main elements of this newly-implemented rule.

Land pooling policy covers the Greenfield areas in five zones J , K -1, L, N and P-II Coming under the Master plan of Delhi -2021. To incentivise dense development for effective utilisation of scarce land resource in the national capital, the policy permits enhanced FAR of 400 as against the present 150. To promote affordable housing, an additional FAR of 15 percent is also allowed. About 22000, hectares of land is expected to be pooled which could meet the needs of about 95 Lakh people. Land Pooling would catalyse economics, social and civic development of national capital besides triggering substantial investments and employment generation.

In order to promote affordable and inclusive housing 15% FAR over and above permissible FAR has also been allowed for EWS /affordable housing and five lakh dwelling units are Expected to be create for economically weaker sections of the society .Differential land return in two categories has been replaced with uniform of land 40:60 basis in the modified policy, thereby benefiting small land holders /farmers. To keep pace with new forms of development, provision for achieving a vertical mix of uses (Residential, commercial , PSP) at building level is introduced . Additional Development Controls have been introduced to regulate building and infrastructure aspects of development.