Defending the lower middle class people who have built small homes in unauthorised colonies, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Saturday announced that colonies on Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and forest land will now be regularised.
Expressing her views at the Delhi Anadhikarat Colony Sammelan in Talkatora Stadium here, the Chief Minister said government agencies neglected the need of more and more dwelling units required for the increasing population in the city.
“Further, residents were forced to put up in colonies without civic amenities. Our Government will never allow any agency to demolish their houses and uproot the families. Delhi will delete the term unauthorised from its dictionary. The days of bulldozers are over.”
With the Cabinet on Saturday agreeing in principle to regularise colonies on ASI and forest land, it is expected to provide relief to 15 lakh residents of unauthorised colonies. The number of colonies on forest land is 157 and on ASI land it is 48.
“The Government has accepted the challenge to remove all legal and technical hurdles coming in the way of regularisation of the colonies affected by ASI, forest and Ridge. It took a decision to provide basic civic amenities in these colonies.”
“Development works will be initiated considering the hardships of the residents of these colonies. Instructions have been issued to the officials of the concerned departments to start preparing estimates of development works in these colonies from the coming Monday itself so that development works can commence during next month.”
Pointing out that 895 colonies were regularised in the first phase, Delhi Urban Development Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said development works have already started, but the real challenge before the State Government was to regularise the colonies affected by ASI, forest and Ridge areas.
He announced that the Government will shortly provide relief to residents of villages in Delhi, particularly extension of the Lal Dora of the villages.
