DDA To Make Farmers Aware of Land Pooling Policy

With a man­date to under­take urb­an­iza­tion through its land pool­ing policy, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) will be coordinating with vari­ous agen­cies to impart train­ing and spread aware­ness among farm­ers whose land may fall under the land pool­ing policy in Delhi. The policy is set to be noti­fied by the Central gov­ern­ment soon.
According to the 2021 Delhi Master Plan, the DDA has been man­dated to under­take urb­an­iza­tion of about 20,000 hec­tares of land, which can accom­mod­ate a pop­u­la­tion of about five mil­lion, through this policy.
These agen­cies could be either NGOs or private bod­ies who have the requis­ite know­ledge on the issue of land.

Under this policy, offi­cials said the private sec­tor would be respons­ible for assem­bling land which would then be made avail­able to the DDA for redevelopment.
The depart­ment will be respons­ible for the over­all plan­ning and redevel­op­ment of the land in a time-bound man­ner while encour­aging the par­ti­cip­a­tion of the private sector.
The redevel­op­ment could range from con­struct­ing group-housing soci­et­ies and provid­ing infra­struc­ture to the farmers.
“We have noticed that about 50 to 60 per cent of the farm­ers in the state are not aware of the policy. Therefore, we have decided to develop a strategy wherein farm­ers can be edu­cated and can par­ti­cip­ate in the devel­op­ment pro­cess to avail the bene­fits of the policy for their prosper­ity,” a senior DDA offi­cial said.
Explaining the concept fur­ther, the offi­cial said, “There is a need to con­sult agen­cies which can spread aware­ness about the policy and encour­age inter­ested farm­ers to provide their land for redevel­op­ment. For instance, in case a farmer is will­ing to give about 10 acres of land we may develop 48 per cent of it and the remain­ing may be util­ised for infra­struc­tural devel­op­ment like con­struc­tion of roads. The farm­ers should be will­ing if the policy is explain­ing prop­erly, since land lies under-utilised in many areas. The bar­ren land may be used for bet­ter pur­poses which will only profit the farmers.”
The offi­cial said that the agen­cies’ job would be mainly to inter­act with farm­ers at the vil­lage level and spread aware­ness, and assist them in apply­ing for the policy through proper documentation.

Source: Indian Express
Dated: 7th April 2015