By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: With Vidhan Sabha elections lurking on the horizon the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled Madhya Pradesh Government in order to woo voters is making series of vote catching moves
In one of such move the Madhya Pradesh state cabinet at its meeting chaired by the Chief Minster Shivraj Singh Chouhan decided to immediately initiate action for regularization of illegal colonies that came up prior to January 2008.
Action would be taken immediately to regularize the colonies located in urban areas which have been considered” illegal” There are 2024 such colonies which have been considered illegal due to various legal flaws and procedural violations.
Although legislations have been framed at the government level to regularize illegal colonies, but only about 200 colonies have been regularized in last five years due to procedural complications in the state.
Keeping this in view a five-member committee was constituted to give suggestions with regard to regularization of illegal colonies. Besides, in the light of the Chief Minister’s directive and meeting of the senior secretaries held under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary action has been proposed for simplification of the procedure to regularize illegal colonies.
For this the original laws would be amended. Accordingly, in case once license is given for a city to a colonizer he would require no separate licenses for each colony to be developed by him in the same city.
For each colony or project permission may be obtained by duly submitting applications. The applications for colonizer license and colony permission would be rationalized.
In order to check the growth of illegal colonies there is need to make the existing legal provisions more stringent. The amount of fine for constructing an illegal colony would be increased from Rs. 10,000 to minimum Rs. 10 lakh and maximum Rs. 50 lakh with one year’s imprisonment. Such crimes would be cognizable and would be tried in District and Sessions Court.
Similarly, for violation of legal provisions regarding colonization in addition to the person/institution obtaining colonization permission all his promoters and directors would also be held responsible.
It would be compulsory for the colonizers to display in the advertisements the area of built up houses and other norms in addition to the norms of corporate area. Issuing an advertisement for a colony or sale or supply of plots without obtaining development permission and colony license would be a penal offence.
The systemic rules would also be amended. There is need to constitute residents welfare associations and to encourage its participation for responsibility of the colony.
It would be appropriate to fix the development charge on the basis of actual cost in consultation with the residents welfare association keeping in view its specific development vision and present financial capacity. In case the actual development charge is Rs. 150 per meter or non-receipt of the amount from all the residents, the gap funding may be done from other resources. Gap funding from Member of Parliament or MLAs funds would be permissible. It would also be appropriate to rationalize the confounding fee for the built up houses in illegal colonies.
The intention of the government is that the scheme should be implemented immediately for which relevant laws and rules would be suitably amended. ([email protected])