Nine years old report on Sainik Farms submitted to High Court

The Municipal Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, has recommended implementation of the Janak Juneja Committee report to regularise Sainik Farms.

If the recommendation is accepted, the residents of this posh unauthorised colony in South Delhi would on an average have to surrender 40 per cent of their property for creation of necessary physical infrastructure like roads and sewage and deposit a fee of Rs. 2,000 per sq. metre as regularisation charge. In return, they would be treated at par with the Civil Lines Bungalow area with regard to building by-laws. They would also have to compulsorily contribute towards a new Shelter Fund for construction of houses for the economically weaker sections and low-income groups in the colony.

The highly confidential report which has been gathering dust since August 1996, when it was presented to the Delhi Government, has been submitted to both the Nanavati Committee, which is looking into reasons for the mushrooming of unauthorised colonies and possibilities of their regularisation, and the Delhi High Court, where a case on regularisation of Sainik Farms is pending.

In his submission before the Nanavati Commission and the Delhi High Court, Mr. Mehta is understood to have argued that recommendations of the Janak Juneja Committee report was the only feasible solution for regularisation of Sainik Farms.

The unauthorised colony, according to the area MLA, Vijay Jolly, has several VVIP residents including the Kerala Governor, R.L. Bhatia, who is also the patron of Sainik Farms Residents Welfare Association; the former Cabinet Secretary, Surinder Singh; the former Lok Sabha Secretary, Subhash Kashyap, and fashion designer, Rina Dhaka.

In October 1995, the Delhi Government had constituted a Task Force headed by an IAS officer, Janak Juneja, to look into various aspects of regularisation of Sainik Farms and the possibility of providing physical infrastructure in this posh colony. Following a detailed plot to plot survey of the entire colony, which was then spread over 651 acres and had 1,456 plots, the five-member Task Force had observed that the colony should be treated at par with other urban residential areas and the building bye-laws of the Civil Lines Bungalow area should be extended to it.

Arguing that all main roads of the colony should be 60 feet wide and the branch road 45 feet wide, the report recommended that each plot holder leave an area on the basis of 50 per cent additional area required for widening or developing of the road network. The present narrow and congested roads and by-lanes of Sainik Farms prevents entry of vehicles like fire tenders into the area.

Further, it said that where it was not possible to devote 50 per cent of the total built up area to the economically weaker sections, the plot holder should be made to contribute to the Shelter Fund. The report observed that before regularisation, it should be made mandatory for the plot owners to remove the extra construction violating building byelaws. Based on its survey, the Task Force calculated that about 32 hectares of land would be required for development and provision of electricity, water supply and other facilities, besides road network. The Task Force was, however, against the regularisation of buildings on the Ridge or reserved forest area.