The process to get Gurgaon’s unauthorised colonies regularised is turning out to be a long, hard road for the Councillors and the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon. Despite the Team Mayor’s optimism, officials feel that the regularisation process is going to be a lengthy one.
In our last report on the status of unauthorised colonies, the MCG had drawn up a revised list of colonies, because many of them were failing the regularisation parameters. In spite of this, the Councillors and MCG maintained an upbeat view, saying that ‘we can start work on those villages and colonies that fulfill the norms’.
In the latest MCG meeting on Wednesday, when the topic of regularisation of the unauthorised colonies was raised, it was drowned in a sea of rhetoric. “There was no one who could give a definite date as to when this would happen,” says Nisha Singh, Councillor for Ward 30. “We have forwarded the list of colonies for regularisation from our end,” says a senior official of the Corporation. “However, when it will get passed is not in our hands. This is a decision to be taken at the Chief Secretary level, and has to be ratified by the Chief Minister himself. Presenting a date will not help. However, we have been told that the process would be completed soon.”
MCG’s Chief Town Planner S.C Kush sheds some more light on the situation. “The file has already been prepared and sent from our side,” he declares. So why is it not happening, despite the months passing? “Because there are several factors that have to be considered before such a motion is passed. For one, it is not only Gurgaon’s unauthorised colonies that are to be regularised,” he says. There are numerous colonies in Faridabad, Rewari, Rohtak, Hissar and each city of the State. “This decision has state-wide implications. The senior administration at Chandigarh has asked for a list of unauthorised colonies to be regularised from each town and city, and the decision will be made together, he reasons.
Further, to bring each of these areas into the ‘controlled
limits’ of the Municipal Corporation (so that they can be then included for development work), a development charge has to be set by the senior administration, for each of the areas. “When an area is regularised, basic amenities like water supply, power lines, sewer network has to be set up, as a part of the process. There is a cost to everything,” says Kush. The file on the unauthorised colonies has the details of what is present in these colonies, and the cost of what is needed has to be calculated. Earlier, the cost was around Rs. 250 per sq. yard, sources say. Now that figure has to be revised, because it will no longer cover the development charges as of this date.
A Councillor remarks that the people in the unauthorised colonies would not understand the issue of fairness to the state’s other cities. “What is needed is an MCG delegation that would appeal to the CM directly, to speed up the regularisation process. The meeting on Wednesday has given us the right to have a corpus fund, in which we can fast-track development projects for our (authorised) villages – without having to get everything sanctioned from the Committee. By the time the unauthorised colonies get regularisation, the villages would have far more amenities than them. This will bring up new issues,” says the Councillor.
As of now, the promise of Team Mayor to get the regularisation process fast-tracked seems to be dead in the water.
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