The Hindu : Front Page : Big relief for unauthorised colonies

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Wednesday, Apr 30, 2008
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Big relief for unauthorised colonies

Staff Reporter

Court gives go-ahead for provision of sewerage facilities; lakhs to benefit

– PHOTO: S. SUBRAMANIUM

UNAUTHORISED DELHI: Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit handing over the list of the Capital’s unauthorised colonies to Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy earlier this year.

NEW DELHI: In a major relief to lakhs of residents of the Capital’s 1,409 identified unauthorised colonies, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday allowed the Delhi Government to provide sewerage facilities there.

Granting permission to the Government to build the facilities, a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice A. K. Sikri and Justice Rekha Sharma, however, made it clear that the go-ahead was devoid of any comment on the merit of regularisation of these colonies.

The Court passed the order on an application by the Government seeking permission to provide sewerage facilities in all the identified unauthorised colonies located on private and public land for regularisation for hygiene reasons.

The application said the Government had been making sincere efforts to provide the minimum basic facilities in these colonies where more than 30 lakh people belonging to weaker sections of society lived under highly unhygienic conditions due to inadequate civic amenities. Moreover, untreated sewage from these colonies was released into the Yamuna aggravating the pollution in the river, the Government had argued. It said the Union Cabinet had in principle decided to regularise these colonies as per its guidelines and the Delhi Cabinet had also taken a decision to provide sewage systems there with adequate water supply to operationalise them.

The Delhi Government had also set up a board for development of these unauthorised colonies under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the application had stated.

The Centre had on October 5 last year issued directions seeking from all unauthorised colonies their maps and other relevant documents along with applications for regularisation.

After scrutiny of as many as 1,603 applications filed by these colonies, the Centre had found 1,409 of them genuine.

Development work has already begun in these colonies and the Union Ministry of Urban Development has already notified the regulations for their regularisation.

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