Delhi’s unauthorised colonies: Surveys hit by pending bills

In 2015, the government’s revenue department had appointed two agencies to carry out a Total Station Mapping (TSM) survey of 1,797 colonies. Now, citing pending bills, the agencies have refused to carry out fresh surveys and verify the ones prepared by them, The Indian Express has learnt. Senior officials said the government is set to miss the September 2018 deadline, set by the Delhi High Court, to complete the survey.

The survey, which would provide clear demarcation of boundaries, has also come to a near standstill due to lack of manpower with the revenue department. “Two selected TSM survey agencies — M/S SKP and M/S Prime Meridian — have refused to participate in the verification of the earlier maps, and fresh TSM survey, on account of pending bills which are yet to be released by the UD (Urban Development department). This has also impacted the TSM survey work on the ground,” the revenue department wrote in a letter, dated March 20, to the UD department.

Sources said maps of 566 colonies have been prepared till now, but only 62 have been verified by the revenue department. The cut-off date for regularisation of construction in these colonies is January 1, 2015. This is the period till which unauthorised colonies that have come up are eligible for regularisation. Last week, the Supreme Court had stayed all construction in these colonies.

As per the government’s directions, the revenue department was to complete the survey within 12 months. But in successive letters, the latest being in March, the revenue department has referred to constraints in carrying out the task.

In the letter, the department wrote that the process of recruiting new patwaris is yet to be completed. It added that till date, no additional ground staff has been made available to any of the districts for carrying out the survey.

“Further, the earlier request by this department to the services department — for posting additional supervisory manpower in the form of tehsilders and naib tehsilders — is yet to be acted upon. Thus, on ground, not a single additional survey team could be constituted for carrying out work,” the letter states.

The completion of the TSM survey is also contingent on “timely and accurate submission of maps of unauthorised colonies by the GSDL (Geospatial Delhi Limited)” to the revenue department.

However, officials said during the process of physical verification, it turned out that the GSDL maps had “inaccuracies”. “Until the above said deficiencies in the GSDL maps are not resolved, tangible progress will not be made in this work… It is, therefore, requested that the UD may call a meeting of all stakeholders to resolve the outstanding issues at the earliest,” the letter added.