Nitin Jain
Ludhiana, October 14
It’s official! At least 653 colonies that have mushroomed in Ludhiana are illegal, the government has confirmed.
In figures
Illegal colonies 653
Regularised 45
Rejected 148
Under consideration 407
Demolished 5
FIRs recommended 220
To be a thing of the past
Illegal colonies will soon become a thing of the past in the state and those developing approved ones will be facilitated as well as promoted by the govt. Aman Arora, Housing amp; Urban Development minister
Public must verify
The public should not fall in the trap of illegal colonies. People must verify the credentials and layout plans of colonies on the GLADA website. We’ll not provide any amenities to the illegal colonies. Amarpreet Sandhu, official
The number could even be more as these many have already applied for regularisation with the Housing and Urban Development Department, officials have said.
While 45 of these have already been regularised under the government policy, the applications to compound the unauthorised development by another 148 illegal have been rejected.
Even as the cases to regularise the remaining 407 illegal colonies are under consideration, the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) has recommended the registration of FIRs against at least 220 developers of unauthorised colonies in the state’s biggest and largest district in terms of area and population.
GLADA Chief Administrator Amarpreet Kaur Sandhu told The Tribune here on Friday that they had adopted zero tolerance to unauthorised and unplanned development with a special focus on illegal colonies.
She said a special drive had also been launched to take punitive action against those who were fleecing gullible residents under the garb of offering cheaper plots and flats in the colonies, which lacked statutory sanction and compliance with the government norms.
“Under this drive, we have demolished five illegal colonies by dismantling their roads, passages and other constructions and structures on the sites recently,” Sandhu said, hinting at similar action against more such illegal colonies in the days to come.
Sandhu added that the developers of 653 unauthorised colonies had applied for regularisation under the Regularisation Policy, 2018, of which 45 colonies had already been compounded, 148 applications had been rejected and 407 colonies were under consideration for regularisation.
GLADA Additional Chief Administrator Amrinder Singh Malhi said besides undertaking a demolition campaign, GLADA had also recommended the registration of FIRs against 220 developers of unauthorised colonies in Ludhiana district.
He said GLADA had also sent notices to the PSPCL not to issue electricity connections without NOC, besides asking the Sub-Registrars of the tehsils concerned to make the NOC mandatory before registration of plots falling in unauthorised colonies.
GLADA Estate Officer Baljinder Singh Dhillon said strict norms and punitive action had started proving a deterrent as more and more developers of unauthorised colonies were not only applying for regularisation but those who could not comply with the specifications had started shelving their plans to develop an illegal colony and instead restore the original status of the land under dispute, which was mostly of agriculture nature.
Police Commissioner Kaustubh Sharma said they were still awaiting prosecution sanction from GLADA in a number of FIRs filed against illegal colonies in the past and lodging fresh cases without taking the pending cases to their logical conclusion would be a waste of exercise.
