AAP govt sat over DDA file for two long years

The Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) land-pooling scheme, which will provide nearly 25 lakh affordable houses, besides other facilities, could have been implemented much earlier, had the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government not delayed it for so long.

Proposed by the DDA, the scheme had been waiting for clearances from the Delhi government since 2015. According to sources, till last year, the Kejriwal government had not even examined the facts of the policy.

"We had sent the file to the Delhi government's Urban Development Department for examination, and to seek clearances for change of land use in the villages of outer Delhi. But till this year, the file had not even been moved to the LG," a senior DDA official said.

Before being sent to the Delhi government, the file had already been approved by the Union Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD).

Officials said the AAP government's Land and Building Department had to give its clearance on converting 95 villages as development area, but the nod did not come till LG Anil Baijal asked for the file. The declaration for marking these villages as 'urban' was also delayed till the very last minute.

The matter was prompted only during the recent municipal elections, during which Kejriwal, in a public meeting in Najafgarh, announced that he will bring in the land pooling policy by May 7.

"It was only after the municipal polls that the LG asked for the file, which was later cleared by him. The government had been delaying a political decision on the matter for long," an official said.