Despite repeated efforts to curb unauthorised development, the reality remains stark: unauthorised colonies have proliferated, and buyers  still face numerous hurdles

In its meeting held on August 14, 2024, the Punjab cabinet decided to remove the requirement of PUDA  NOC  for the sale of plots in the unapproved residential colonies. But the stated objective “to save the buyers from their struggle for basic civic amenities in these colonies" is the same as used by the successive governments amending the PAPR Act 1995 from time to time while its hollowness is so obvious in the reality on the ground. Every time the law has been amended to make some of its provisions more stringent against the colonizers, it has served them more. For example, the PAPR Act 1995 was amended in 2014 to deal with the promoters or estate agents registered under the act but failing to comply with its provisions.

The amendment changed the punishment of imprisonment from up to three years to a minimum of three years extendable to seven years with a fine from ten thousand to a minimum of Rupees two lac extending to Rupees five lac. But it made the law ineffectual on the offending colonizers in the past. The cycle of stricter punishment and waiver of the offences in the past has been on since 1995 in the name of saving buyers from cheating and deceit.The notifications, issued in the years 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021, and 2022, amending or adding to the law(s) of PAPRA  instantiate the continuity in relief to the colonizers in the name of providing relief to the people.

The successive governments have been approving the schemes of instituting the need for a ‘no objection certificate’ NOC' by paying some fee as development charges that the individual plot holders are circumstantially compelled to pay but the real estate agents remain immune to it waiting for the next the cut-off date for the waiver.  Given the increased demand for housing and the unregulated activities of “some private colonisers” working with the sole “motive of profits” disregarding “the interests and rights of buyers of plots and flats”, the stated objective for repealing the Punjab Regulation of colonies Act, 1975 and the legislating Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act (PAPRA) 1995 was “to check, control and regulate effectively the activities of such private colonisers and protect the interest of the consumers”.

The situation originated from the unpreparedness of the government to meet the rising need for housing and post-1990 privatisation policy without any regulating mechanisms. In hindsight, the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act 1995 was legislated and the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) was established to register private colonizers and issue licenses to develop the housing colonies on the agricultural or other land after seeking change in land use (CLU)  and approved plans as per rules in PAPR Act 1995.

With a huge financial burden on salaries and infrastructure PUDA and its subsequent regional authorities were tasked to enforce ‘obligations on promoters and estate agents’ to create all civic amenities within a specified timeframe requiring them to hand over the colony to the respective urban local body after NOCs from all the concerned departments. The stated objective of the act (PAPAR) and the authority (PUDA) since then has been to check the growth of unauthorised colonies and enforce the development in the authorised colonies as per rules.

But unfortunately, it has miserably failed in its two-pronged objective: since 1995 the number of unauthorised colonies has risen to more than 15000 while the number of authorised colonies in comparison is much less.

Yet in the authorised colonies, the enforcement of time-bound assured development is too weak to act for anyone as a motivation to build houses there.  The colonisers have sold all the plots in the name of legal colonies plotting a chunk of land on its sidelines without necessary approvals and without developing the approved section to the standards of seeking NOCs from the concerned departments to hand over the colonies to the local body; the irony is that the development authorities prefer not to take any sou moto notice of it. Neither the developer nor any government agency including PUDA undertakes the development responsibility although the rules prescribe stringent action against the coloniser and for PUDA to undertake development by confiscating the mortgaged properties and bank guarantees etc. But PUDA continues to grant extensions year after year while the plot buyer is not able to build the house on the ‘legal’ plot in a ‘legal’ colony because the PSPCL does not provide a power supply connection in the absence of NOC.

The officials appointed in PUDA and urban local body (ULB) to enforce and ensure time-bound development in the legal colonies by the licensed private developer finish off by saying that the public facilities in an authorised colony are the responsibility of the colonizer who doesn't give a damn to this responsibility because he understands that the enforcement agencies enforce the law on those who approach the law not on those who violate the law.

The plot buyers feel legally duped. The unauthorised colonies without change in land use or any approved plan continued to mushroom where the colonisers created very little infrastructure and sold the plots leaving the plot holders to act as the vote bank approaching the political class for relief. Hence the need for NOCs and their waiver becomes a game of politics rather than a policy.Now that the cycle is complete by the Punjab cabinet decision to waive off the need for NOCs in the unauthorised colonies while the cabinet itself had legislated for the NOCs.

It doesn’t matter to the common man which cabinet it was or is; what matters to them is a legal and easy-to-build house policy for them.

Therefore while the government notifies the waiver of NOCs in the unauthorised colonies, it should direct PUDA to confiscate mortgaged properties and bank guarantees to develop all more-than-ten-years colonies and ensure time-bound development of electricity LD systems, sewerage, water supply and roads before selling any plot in the authorised colonies to encourage the planned and legal development and strictly control the unauthorised development in future rather than approve policies to legalise the illegal.

The onus for ensured development should be on the regulator rather than on the buyer of a plot.

Let the 2024 notification waiving off the condition of NOCs by the buyers be the last one! Let the common man experience the fundamental right to live a respectable life!

(The writer is a retired professor from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar and a Member, of the Governing Council, INTACH; views are personal)