DDA gives green signal to land pooling policy

Pvt owners can pool tracts of land, give it to authority for development

The DDA on Friday approved its ‘land pooling’ policy which promises to give an impetus to faster development of the housing sector in the national capital.

Till now, it is the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which has been acquiring large tracts of land, developing them and then selling residential or commercial properties to the buyers. However, the new policy will allow land owners to pool their land for development by DDA.

And instead of compensation, they will be given a percentage of the developed land.

The policy was cleared in the authority meeting of DDA chaired by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung on Friday.

“The policy on public private partnership model in land assembly and development in Delhi has been approved. The land pooling concept envisages consolidation of the privately owned land by its owners where the pooled land is to be surrendered to DDA and it shall in return give back part of the land to the owner or owners in certain percentage,” said a DDA official. The policy on land pooling was published for inviting objections and suggestions on April 18. Officials said in response to this public notice, about 660 objections and suggestions were received.  

“Based on the hearing conducted by the board of enquiry and hearing on June 25 and 26, it has recommended to reduce the minimum land pooling size for category-2 from 3.0 hectare to 2.0 hectare. Now there will be two categories; first 20 hectare and above and second 2.0 hecatre to 20 hectare,” an official said.

The percentage return in the first category will be ‘60 per cent (53 per cent residential, 5 per cent commercial and 2 per cent public and semi-public)’.

For the second category this will be ‘48 per cent (43 per cent residential, 3 per cent commercial and 2 per cent public and semi-public)’. The ground coverage has also been increased from 33 per cent to 40 per cent.

For the housing provision for economically weaker sections of the population, the owner is required to hand over 50 per cent of the EWS units to the DDA for its disposal whereas 50 per cent of the developed units to be constructed for EWS shall be disposed of by the owner to the apartment owners at market rates.