Kejriwal holds village meetings for land pooling policy

In an attempt to reach out to farmers in rural Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today held meetings in villages to propagate the Land Pooling Policy (LPP) recently notified by his government.

In the meetings held in rural constituencies of Najafgarh and Matiala, Kejriwal said the new LPP will not only help develop the rural areas of the national capital, but also create employment.

Last week, the Kejriwal government had declared 89 villages in the national capital as urban areas which would help the authorities develop infrastructure projects in those localities.

Under the policy, government agencies would develop infrastructure like roads, schools, hospitals, community centres, and stadia on part of the pooled land and return a portion of the plot to the farmer who can later on execute housing projects with the help of private builders.
 

Around 20-25 lakh housing units will come up in these urbanised villages in the next 5-10 years and this will ensure properties are available at affordable rates.

The main feature of the policy is that housing projects could be developed by builders on the returned agricultural land.

Earlier, building housing units on agricultural land of these 89 villages was not allowed as the LPP was not in place.

"Under the LPP, the rural areas will be urbanised and there will be development in the area and creation of employment," Kejriwal said.

The chief minister said in 2015, the AAP government had given highest ever compensation in the country to farmers hit by hailstorm.

Rural Delhi did not yield good results for the AAP in its maiden polls in December, 2013. The AAP then held a series of meetings in the area to woo voters here. This resulted in the party doing extremely well in these areas.

However, the party did not fare well in rural areas in the recent MCD polls. To regain its grip the party has now appointed Kailash Gahlot as the transport minister to represent rural Delhi.

"I have told him (Gahlot) buy as many buses you want so that you can use it for rural Delhi," Kejriwal said.