Chandigarh, December 14 - In a significant move aimed at regularizing unauthorized colonies and ensuring the provision of essential urban development and amenities for residents residing in these colonies, Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal announced the regularization of 210 unauthorized colonies. This includes 103 colonies from the Department of Town and Country Planning and 107 colonies from the Urban Local Bodies Department.

Addressing a press conference here today, the Chief Minister said that the state government has set the final deadline of January 31, 2024, to complete the notification of all 2274 unauthorized colonies in the state. Basic amenities such as roads, sewerage, water supply, and streetlights will be provided to the residents.

However, earlier also, giving a big relief to the residents residing in these colonies, the Chief Minister had announced to regularize of such colonies. So far, 1883 colonies have been regularized.

Highlighting a significant contrast between the present state government and Congress, the Chief Minister shared that during the 10-year tenure of the Congress government; only 874 unauthorized colonies were regularized, whereas our government has regularized a total of 1673 colonies. With the addition of today's 210 colonies, a total of 1883 colonies will be regularized, said Sh. Manohar Lal.

He further shared that a team, formed under the chairmanship of the Deputy Commissioner and District Municipal Commissioner, is overseeing the work of regularizing colonies. Drones or satellite imagery will be used for regular surveillance to control the increasing number of unauthorized colonies. Orders for TCP and No Due Certificates (NDC) are being issued to keep a close vigil on the mushrooming of illegal encroachment in unauthorized colonies and prevent the registries of such properties. This measure will be applied on the NDC portal to control the increasing number of unauthorized colonies, said the Chief Minister.

He said that now if any unauthorized colonies develop, strict action will be taken against the developers of such colonies. For this, the process of granting license has also been changed. The state government has also formulated Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Awas Yojana so that people can buy affordable houses. The aim of the government is that people should build their houses in authorized colonies only.

Additional Chief Secretary and Financial Commissioner, Revenue and Disaster Management Department, Sh. T.V. S.N. Prasad, Additional Chief Secretary, Town and Country Planning Department, Sh. Arun Kumar Gupta, Commissioner and Secretary, Irrigation and Water Resources Department, Sh. Pankaj Agarwal, Commissioner and Secretary, Urban Local Bodies Department, Sh. Vikas Gupta, Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Dr. Amit Agrawal, Deputy Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Sh. K. Makarand Pandurang, Director, Town and Country Planning Department, Sh. Amit Khatri, Political Advisor to Chief Minister, Sh. B.B. Bharti, Media Advisor, Sh. Rajeev Jaitly, Media Secretary, Sh. Praveen Atreya, Chief Media Coordinator, Sh. Sudesh Kataria also remained present on this occasion.