Kuldip Bhatia Ludhiana, July 4 The policy launched by the Punjab Government for regularistion of illegal colonies, which expired on June 30, has obviously failed to achieve the desired objective if the scant number of applications received by the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) is any indication. According to GLADA Estate Officer Sonam Chaudhry, of 2,000-odd identified illegal colonies under jurisdiction of GLADA, only 450 developers had come forward for regularisation of colonies while around 15,000 applications were received for compounding of plots/properties in unlicensed colonies. In other words, even by conservative estimates more than 75 per cent developers of the illegal colonies chose not to avail of the opportunity to get their colonies regularised. The reasons for failure of the successive policy having been introduced towards this end, earlier by the then SAD-BJP government and now by the Congress government, are not hard to understand going by what the state holders have to say about the flaws in the regularisation policies launched till now. The Punjab Colonisers and Property Dealers’ Association, which has already raised a demand for further extension of the policy in a reformed and simplified manner, maintains that decisions taken at a meeting convened by Suresh Kumar, Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, in January this year, to discuss the demands made by stakeholders, had not been conveyed to the regulatory bodies, nor were these fully implemented with the result that several intending developers could not avail themselves of the policy. According to GS Lamba, general secretary of the Punjab Colonisers and Property Dealers Association, the waiver of interest on fee deposited by the developers under previous policies – even though accepted in principle by the government – was not implemented till now. “The government has been further asked to issue directions to the development authorities not to lodge criminal cases under the PAPRA Act against developers of illegal colonies if they had made 100 per cent payment of the compounding fee,” he added. The developers also demanded that colonies where development works were to be carried out by the regulatory authority or those colonies where total plots had been sold be exempted from registration under the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) and for regularisation of plots and properties in unlicensed colonies the developers wanted the receipt for payment of composition fee to be considered as NOC. The issues that the developers want to be addressed before any further extension of the policy are parity between development charges stipulated for plots/properties located within the city limits and outside, designating estate officers as competent authority for grant of NOCs to plots and properties in place of chief administrators, approval of building plans of sub-divided plots in total area of less than 1,000 square yards which was not covered under RERA and early constitution of a state property board.

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