The South civic body is planning to allow building plans to be submitted for construction in unauthorised colonies — a move aimed at giving legal status to houses and to provide relief to people from “harassment” and “corruption”. All regularised colonies must submit a plan before a house is built. However, this isn’t followed in unauthorised colonies as construction isn’t permitted. According to a senior official, rampant construction takes place in these colonies under the garb of repair work with the “connivance of politicians and building department engineers”. Leader of the standing committee of South MCD B K Oberoi said these colonies now have legal status under the PM UDAY scheme – which confers ownership rights in unauthorised colonies – so they should be offered services given to authorised ones. “We must accept that there has been rampant construction in unauthorised colonies and these houses cannot be demolished or reconstructed,” he said. In December 2019, the Centre had launched the PM UDAY (Unauthorised Colonies in Delhi Awas Adhikar Yojana) scheme to confer ownership rights to properties in 1,731 illegal colonies. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is the nodal agency to execute ownership rights and launched a portal for the purpose. Oberoi said the SDMC has written to DDA to chalk out a plan to allow the civic body to approve building plans in these colonies for construction. The move assumes significance in the light of the MCD polls slated for early 2022. The BJP aims to target a large chunk of residents in unauthorised colonies, who have traditionally been AAP’s vote bank. The SDMC had passed another proposal earlier that it will not disconnect power and water connections in cases of violations.
