DDA reopens land pooling portal, hopes for better response

NEW DELHI: Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has reopened the portal for landowners to
pool their land and expects more participation. This is the fifth time since the launch of the
ambitious land policy in February 2019 that the portal has been opened.
“The response has been positive and the aim of reopening the portal from November 10 to
December 24 is to allow more participation. Those who have land parcels near the priority
sectors will particularly benefit from this opportunity,” said a DDA official.
Sources said the Delhi government recently notified nine more villages as development areas
for land pooling and reopening of the portal for 45 days would allow landowners of these villages
to participate. The number of villages already notified for development under land pooling is 95
and the newly added nine villages fall in Zone P-I.

On February 5, 2019, DDA launched a web-enabled, single-window portal for inviting
registration for participation in land pooling. The portal was scheduled to be open for six months,
i.e. till August 4, but due to a lukewarm response, DDA extended the date to September 6. At
the time the portal first closed, the area of land pooled under the policy stood at 6,407 hectares.
The portal has been reopened four times since then, and currently, the total land pooled under
the policy is more than 6,900 hectares.
According to officials, the land that has been pooled is enough to create a sub-city, but scattered
land parcels need readjustment. Though DDA had finalised three “model sectors” in three
different zones, which will be developed under the policy and serve as a template for future
growth, work couldn’t fully start on the projects due to the pandemic, which affected the process
such as verification of land records and field surveys.
DDA had proposed major changes in the policy and made it flexible to present it as more
attractive to developers and landowners. “Flexibility has now been given to developers and they
have been enabled to use variable FAR. We have also permitted mixed use in land pooling
area. The flexibility to convert commercial use to residential has been permitted as long as
norms are not violated,” the official said.
“We are moving in the direction of creating the model sectors, which will give a huge momentum
to development under the policy,” he said