Extra FAR to recast illegal colonies: LG

Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna on Monday said private developers could "participate" in the development process of the city's unauthorised colonies which have been recently regularised.

"Redevelopment of all unauthorised colonies is going to be a huge opportunity for the developers," he said, while speaking at a workshop to review the Master Plan Delhi-2021.

Khanna said some developers had shown interest and those selected for redevelopment of the colonies could be given extra floor area ratio (FAR) as incentive.

"The developers could consolidate and redevelop these colonies. As part of the reconstruction plan, 50 per cent extra FAR could be provided to them to ensure that they can construct more residential housing to make the process economically viable," he said.

He suggested that the FAR might be enhanced further and the government was open to such suggestions.

"Only 50 per cent of the population live in planned areas," Khanna said, adding that the planning process could not keep pace with the influx in Delhi.

Khanna said slack and inefficient enforcement was one of the reasons that led to the growth of unauthorised colonies in the city.

He said housing for the economically weaker section was the answer to prevent encroachment on public land. "Besides these colonies, Delhi has around 600 slum clusters which house 30 lakh people," he said.

Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath, who also attended the workshop, said the fact that hundreds of unauthorised colonies in Delhi had to be regularised through a legislation "is a tribute to bad planning".

"Delhi has had the problem of bad planning and bad enforcement. It is just not bad enforcement. What will you enforce? How can you enforce 1,600 irregular colonies?" Nath said.

"Perhaps we are the only country in the world which had to bring in a legislation, the Delhi Law Special Provision Act, saying we are going to regularise these colonies. What is this a tribute to? It is a tribute to bad planning," he said.

... contd.

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