By IANS
New Delhi : With an eye on the coming assembly polls in Delhi, the Congress-led central government Friday issued guidelines to carry out development works in over 1,400 unauthorised colonies in the city.
Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken said the ministry has notified the regulations for regularisation of the unauthorised colonies in the city, like providing electricity, drainage, roads and other civic amenities.
Maken added that the regulations would give wide-ranging powers to the Delhi state government to take up the entire regularisation process and related development work with immediate effect.
“The entire exercise of regularisation has been simplified by excluding restrictive clauses vis-à-vis requirements such as requisite social infrastructure and past registration etc,” said the minister.
“This has been done taking the ground realities into consideration and would ensure that people living in such colonies do not face unnecessary hardship,” Maken added.
The government directive empowers the Sheila Dikshit-led state government to provide basic facilities to the people of these colonies who are considered to be the traditional vote bank of the Congress.
The assembly election is due in November this year.
According to the guidelines issued in October 2007, the regularisation process should be completed within six months from the last date of receipt of applications for it.
The Delhi government has already started the process, the minister said.