Land pooling policy for Chandigarh villages on cards

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 10

The UT Administration plans to implement a land pooling policy in a village on a pilot basis. The Administration is preparing the policy to utilise vacant land in the city. Initially, the policy will be introduced in a UT village for the development of available land.

After the success of the pilot project, the land pooling policy would be implemented in other villages, said UT Adviser Dharam Pal.

Facing a shortage of large chunks of vacant land, the Administration is also considering giving resettlement option to owners of commercial and residential properties in the villages, he said, adding that broad contours of the land pooling policy were discussed at a meeting with officials of different departments here today.

Directing the officials to prepare a step-wise process of the policy, Dharam Pal said, “The situation is far more complicated in Chandigarh as large chunks of vacant land are not available and we cannot do anything in the green area as per the Chandigarh Master Plan-2031.”

“As the development has to be restricted to certain areas being used for commercial and residential purposes, resettlement options can be given to people under the land pooling policy, he said, adding that things were entirely different in Chandigarh as compared to neighbouring districts of Panchkula and Mohali where large tracks of land were available.

Recently, UT Administrator Banwarilal Purohit had asked the Administration to utilise available vacant land in the city.

The UT Administration has also roped in Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Human Settlement to formulate a land aggregation and pooling policy to help the UT utilise surplus land for development works in the city.

A consultant of the Indian Institute for Human Settlement had already presented a draft policy for aggregation of land for villages and peri urban areas in Chandigarh, after studying best practices of this area in Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra. On the issue of the Lal Dora extension, the Administration has decided to mark it using the LIDIR technology. 

Pilot project

After the success of the pilot project, the land pooling policy would be implemented in other villages, said UT Adviser Dharam Pal.

Submit details of land, depts told

The Administration had asked different departments to submit details of available and encroached land. The authorities are mulling a number of land pooling models for the development of villages and peripheral areas. One of the models being considered is giving land development rights instead of land rights.