AAP, BJP snipe on regularisation of Delhi's colonies

Senior Delhi BJP leader Vijender Gupta on Tuesday accused the ruling AAP of misleading people on the issue of regularisation of unauthorised colonies and claimed boundaries of around 400 such colonies have already been fixed.

Gupta made the allegation after the AAP earlier termed a Centre's decision to the give ownership rights to 40 lakh people living in unauthorised colonies a "poll gimmick", asserting that the BJP-led Centre has no intention of fulfilling its promise to regularise unauthorised colonies in the city.

The two the parties have been sniping at each other on the regularisation of unauthorised colonies ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls due early next year.

The war of words has intensified with the Centre last month deciding to provide property ownership rights to the residents of unauthorised colonies.

Gupta, the leader of opposition in Delhi assembly, asserted that the Kejriwal government has done no work in the last five years to regularise the unauthorised colonies.

"Now as the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections are coming near, they are misleading the people living in these 1,731 unauthorized colonies," he alleged.

While the Delhi government could not fix the boundary of even a single unauthorized colony in the last five years and sought time till 2021 for it, the DDA fixed boundaries of 400 such colonies within 10 days of the Modi government passing a Cabinet resolution to give ownership rights to 40 lakh people living in these colonies, he claimed.

After getting the property ownership rights, the residents of these unauthorised colonies will be able to get properties registered in their names and even get loans after mortgaging their properties.

The Union government has also decided to withdraw all cases filed under Section 81 of the Delhi Land Reform Act, said Gupta.

In 1,731 unauthorized colonies, neither any penalty nor any external development charges will be levied on any property, he said, adding these colonies will be developed like any other DDA colony.

A Bill will also be brought in the Winter Session of the Parliament beginning this month to give ownership rights to the residents of these colonies, he said.

Gupta claimed that the Centre has also completed the process of giving the "urbanized villages" status to 81 villages of rural Delhi, where agricultural land could not be used for any other purpose.

The AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had earlier alleged that the Centre has no intention to fulfil its promise of regularising unauthorised colonies.

The Congress had also issued provisional certificates in 2008 before the assembly elections and after coming to power it had not regularised these colonies, he said.

"Now the BJP is doing the same thing. The BJP is saying that they will register the names of people living in unauthorised colonies on an online portal. It is nothing but an attempt to dupe people," Singh had said.

AAP's Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai too had said that the regularisation of unauthorised colonies is "just an election promise that the BJP has no intention to fulfil".