Chandigarh to have village-wise plan for development

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 15

For a holistic growth of rural areas, the architecture and urban planning departments of the UT have been tasked with preparing a village-wise development plan.

The village-wise plan prepared by the departments would be merged with the overall development plan of the city as well as all villages, said UT Adviser Dharam Pal.

During the day, a meeting was convened to discuss Land Aggregation Policy for Chandigarh and the proposed development of villages and peri-urban areas as per notified Chandigarh Master Plan (CMP) 2031.

Presided over by the UT Adviser, the meeting was attended by Mandip Singh Brar, Deputy Commissioner-cum Estate Officer; Anindita Mitra, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation; Yashpal Garg, Chief Executive Officer, Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB); Saurabh Arora, Joint Secretary, Estates; and Kapil Setia, Chief Architect. The consultant of the Indian Institute of Human Settlement, Bengaluru, attended the meeting online.

The consultant of IIHS presented a draft policy for aggregation of land for villages and peri-urban areas in Chandigarh, after studying the best practices of this area in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The Adviser said it was the first draft and there was a lot of discussion on different features of the land-pooling policy. After detailed discussions with different stakeholders, including the DC office, MC etc, it was decided that a revised draft policy would be prepared which would take care of all issues, including development to be done outside the “lal dora” in villages, said the Adviser.

However, the Adviser desired that provisions of RERA and other Acts/guidelines prevalent for such development may also be incorporated in the policy.

We have studied the development models of Panchkula, Delhi etc, which have their own development authorities. So in UT, we want the CHB to perform the role of the development authority,” he said.

During the meeting, the Chief Architect made a presentation on study undertaken for development plan of villages in Chandigarh highlighting the existing physical situation and proposals and possible options for both sectoral and non-sectoral villages in conformity with the notified CMP 2031.

Based on recommendations of the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031, focused development of villages would be undertaken by the Municipal Corporation or the CHB as per the policy to be notified by the Chandigarh Administration in consultation with the competent authority. These development plans would be undertaken through a Special Village Planning Cell in close coordination between the MC, CHB and the Department of Urban Planning, in a time-bound manner, added the Adviser.