Refuting Delhi PWD Minister Satyendar Jain’s claims that guidelines of the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) policy have been changed to benefit private players, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) on Wednesday said that the policy had been prepared in a transparent way, after thorough consultations with all stakeholders and the general public.
A DDA spokesperson said that the provisions of the TOD policy and regulations have been misunderstood and the apprehension expressed are contrary to facts.
“In the entire TOD policy, the balance is in favour of government agencies and not the private sector,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that the clause regarding development control norms being as per the use premises prescribed in lease conditions, is in case of transportation and public and semi-public facility plots.
Control norms
“This condition has been proposed specifically for facility plots and plots allotted for transportation and public, semi-public use. If lease conditions are not imposed then private allottees who have been allotted land by the DDA or L&DO on concessional rates in the past shall change the use of the premises and get windfall gains and at the same time the facilities will get reduced,” he said.
“In the last 60 years since the DDA came in, a large number of plots have been allotted to NGOs under public and semi-public facility at concessional rates to provide basic services like education, health and social infrastructure to weaker sections. Since such NGOs cannot be allowed windfall gain by diverting public/semi-public facility plots from public domain to residential, commercial, industrial and mixed-use in the private domain,” he said.
“Para-6 of the TOD Regulations has been explicitly included and it implies that the lessor viz DDA or L&DO, shall examine each case on the basis of original terms of allotment and then take a call in the interest of public to ensure that the area under public and semi-public facility does not get diverted to residential, commercial and mixed-use,” he said.
He said that in fact, this stipulation provides more flexibility to the government vis-a-vis the private players because while the minimum requirement will be binding on others, it is not binding on transportation, government and PSP land uses.
Floor area ratio
He also said that the increase of Floor Area Ratio (FAR) to 400 would lead to densification of the area and thus increase the pressure on the public utility and services, which fall under the transportation and public/semi-public facility.
“To ensure that higher FAR and densification do not lead to chaos, the requirement of area under public/semi-public facility shall obviously have to be much more than at present. Since land acquisition is now virtually impossible, this additional area shall have to be provided from the existing kitty,” he said.
The DDA said that the TOD policy and regulations were put in the public domain twice to bring in absolute transparency for 30 days, inviting objections and suggestions.
“A number of objections and suggestions were received from the public and government agencies, which were deliberated in detail in the authority meeting and Board of Enquiry and hearing meetings,” he said.
The spokesperson added that the Transit Oriented Development policy has been finalised after open consultations with all stake-holders and representatives.
