Ghaziabad Development Authority to begin public objection hearing for draft Master Plan 2031

Ghaziabad: The draft Master Plan -2031 prepared for Ghaziabad will now enter the objection hearing stage for a period of 20 days from August 5. Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) officials will dispose of about 1,100 objections, said sources. The GIS-based plan was approved by the GDA board in April and about 1,260 objections were received, which were shortlisted to 1,100.

A master plan is a broad layout of a city and clearly lays out different areas in accordance with different land uses such as residential, commercial and industrial, among others. The Master Plan-2031 is divided into three parts for Ghaziabad city, Loni and Modinagar/Muradngar.

“We shortlisted about 1,100 objections out of 1,260 as many objections turned out to be duplicate. The maximum objections of about 850 have been received for city areas while the rest are from Loni and Modinagar/Muradnagar. Majority of these relate to land use conversion, non-conforming land use and even conversion of green areas to residential or commercial,” said GDA town planner Rajiv Ratan Sah.

According to norms, nearly 45% of the land under a master plan is earmarked for residential usage while there is a provision of about 15% for green areas. The industrial land usage is about 5% while commercial usage is about 2% of the total area taken up in the plan.

The city has 522 square kilometers (sqm) of geographical area.

Officials familiar with the development said that once the objections are disposed of, any changes in the Master Plan-2031 will be taken to the board for further approval and thereafter the plan will be sent to the state administration for final approval.

Once approved, the Master Plan-2031 will replace the existing Master Plan-2021.

Apart from the regularly defined zones, the Master Plan-2031 includes two special development areas (SDAs) and seven influence zones along the corridor being built for the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) project. The project will provide high speed train connectivity between Delhi and Meerut on an 82-kilometre route and is likely to get fully commissioned in March, 2025.

The two SDAs have been defined at Guldhar and Duhai and will have an area of 250 hectares and 400 hectares respectively. These two areas may form a township since they are adjacent to each other and will see housing and commercial development.

On the other hand, an area within a radius of 1.5-kilometre from each of the seven RRTS stations has been defined as “influence zones”.