According to a Cabinet note prepared by the ministry, a 90-acre stretch has been identified near East Kidwai Nagar, just five kilometres from the posh Lutyen's Bungalow Zone, for development.
The delay in the project is not just because it requires clearance from the Cabinet. Though it is the Central Public Works Department which builds houses for government officials, in this case, the minister in charge, Ajay Maken, who is also the MP from New Delhi constituency, wants to hand over construction to the NBCC.
Ministry officials have not taken kindly to this and hence the delay.
According to ministry officials, the long waiting list of officials for housing and under-utilisation of available space has led to this proposal.
"The use of permissible floor area ratio has not been realised, as a result of which encroachment and misuse of land occurs," said a senior official in the ministry.
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"Time has therefore come to augment the housing stock and such augmentation has to be from existing land resources by reconstruction of aged, dangerous and technologically unsound buildings," he added.
According to figures available with the ministry, the West Kidwai Nagar colony has 2,331 type I, II and IV dwelling units. The plan is to construct a minimum of 5,000 units, of which Type IV houses will number more than others.
"In the integrated scheme for redevelopment, two local shopping centres and two convenience shopping centres amounting to 3 per cent of total floor area ratio (FAR) are admissible.
Also, 10 per cent FAR will be for mixed land use," said the official. The land kept aside for mixed use may be handed over to private developers to realise a part of the project's construction cost of Rs 1,000 crore.
This means 10 acres land in the heart of Delhi will soon be available for commercial development.
"We will be moving the note soon as the problem of government housing is quite acute," said the official.