The Haryana government yesterday announced its first urban policy for effective planning, development, environment improvement, resource generation and town management, with special emphasis on towns in the National Capital Region.
Subhash Goyal, minister of state for urban development, said the new policy had been designed to identify the issues and finalise the strategies needed for sustainable and balanced urban development in the state.
Goyal said the Haryana government had paid due emphasis on the fact that the annual average growth rate of the urban population of the state was the highest at 4.1 per cent, against the national average of 2.7 per cent.
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Due to its border with Delhi, a large number of people working in the Capital prefer to settle in towns in Haryana. As a result, there is tremendous pressure on the infrastructure of towns in the National Capital Region.
The minister said the state government would restructure the existing agencies at different levels to accommodate new planning and development requirements and ensure that municipal planning committees were constituted to implement and monitor the development plans.
Goyal said the state government would also evolve a review and monitoring mechanism, provide an authentic database for all planning processes and streamline the regulatory framework and development control norms for implementation. For this purpose, development plans for areas within municipal limits of all towns will be prepared within six months from the date of declaration of controlled areas.
Goyal said the state government would also embark upon reviewing technical parameters for setting up residential colonies and commercial complexes within municipal limits, keeping in view the non-availability of land and wide roads required for the grant of licences under the existing policies of the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975.
The government will also take steps to check unauthorised colonisation by suitably amending the Act and simplifying and liberalising the licensing procedure. It will encourage private participation in urban development by granting licences to small colonisers for areas exceeding 500 sq m for residential and 100 sq m for commercial users.
Goyal added that in order to check the mushrooming of unauthorised colonies, a no-objection certificate would be made mandatory from the municipality concerned for registration of any sale deed and provision of any electric, water or sewerage connection by any agency or department.