LAND POOLING POLICY

Background

The Policy on Public-Private-Partnership in Land Assembly and Development in Delhi was
introduced by Delhi Development Authority (DDA) as an alternative to the existing large scale
Land Acquisition, Development and Disposal Policy dated 02.05.1961 under which planned
development in Delhi was regulated till now. Under the earlier policy, the DDA compulsorily
acquired the required land in Delhi from the land owners namely farmers and bhumidars at
minimum fixed compensation rates. The existing Delhi Urban Area was developed using this
method without voluntary participation of the land owners due to which the entire monetary
benefits of converting rural land to urban use were captured by DDA by exercising the
constitutional principle of eminent domain, on the basis of which the Land Acquisition Act,
1984 is authorized to compulsorily acquire land from private owners for public purpose.

The need for an alternate policy emerged because land acquisition and planned development hadnot kept pace with the increasing demands of urbanization during the last five decades. Vast
tracts of land compulsorily acquired by DDA in the 60's, 70's and 80's were never developed
and eventually encroached upon or utilized for unauthorized developments in Delhi. Moreover,
the acquisition of land had become a difficult and tedious process fraught with litigation,
agitations by land owners and delays as the compensation paid by the Government to land
owners was not comparable to the market value of the land and owners were more aware of the
benefits associated with participating in urban development processes.

In view of this scenario, Delhi Development Authority under the guidance of Ministry of UrbanDevelopment and in consultation with experts from Association of Municipalities& Development Authorities (AMDA) considered various alternative techniques of accesstoland.

In 2009, analternate draft land policy was put up on the DDA website for stakeholder views and finally National Council of Applied Research (NCAER) with input from multiple stakeholders
representing the real estate sector evolved a new policy for land assembly and urban
development based on the Land Pooling technique which permits owners of the land to
participate in the ensuing urban development in the urban extension of Delhi based on the
provisions of the Master Plan for Delhi 2021 (MPD-2021).

Land Pooling Technique

Land Pooling technique also known as land consolidation or land readjustment is an importanttool for urban development which is participatory, innovative and a time tested method forassembling rural or urbanisable undeveloped. This method can be utilised either at the periphery
of an expanding settlement or the redevelopment of areas within an existing one.

This method envisages voluntary assembly of land by different land owners who pool their landparcels together by forming associations/ societies/ partnerships or formal understanding
amongst themselves (which are legally recognized). This pooled land (generally assumed to be
contiguous i.e each parcel of land shares at least one boundary or part of boundary with at least
one of the remaining parcels forming the land pool) is then transferred to the Urban
Development Authority which is responsible for carrying out this exercise. After legal and
related verification along with physical possession of the pooled land, the Urban Development
Authority returns a specific share of the transferred land (originally pooled land) back to the land
owners (or their representative) with the rights to develop the returned land for various urban
uses.

Conceptual Image showing Land Pooling and readjustment of land parcels

The Urban Development Authority gets ownership of the balance of the pooled land(afterreturning a specified proportion to the Land owners) which is utilized for providinginfrastructure to the new urban areas and to generate remuneration for the developmentauthorityto sustain and maintain the provided infrastructure. The surrendered land is used for public useswhich include transportation, utilities, social and physical infrastructure etc.

Variants of this technique based on the land pooling concept were used all over India in Gujarat(majorly Ahmedabad), Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh (Raipur), Andhra Pradesh (Visakhapatnam),Kerala (Trichur) etc.Internationally, variants of this method have been usedextensivelyinJapan,SouthKorea,Taiwan, West Germany, Canada, Turkey and the state of Western Australia. Even WashingtonDC, the capital of United States of America was developed using a similar method.

DDA's Land Pooling Policy

The Land Pooling Model proposed for development with Developer Entities is as follows:

Category
of Land / Land
Returned / Land
Retained / Land Returned to Developer Entity / Total
BUA / Max
Population
Assembly
(Ha) / to DE / by DDA / Gross Residential / City Level
Commercial / City Level PSP
Land
(Net Land) / Built Up Area*
(Ha) / Land / BUA / Land / BUA
% / Ha / Resi.
BUA / Facilities
BUA / % / Ha / Ha / % / Ha / Ha
20 Ha &
above~ / 12Ha
(60%) / 8Ha
(40%) / 53 / 10.6
(5.83) / 26.8 / 4.65*** / 5 / 1.0 / 2.5 / 2 / 0.4 / 1.0 / 34.95 / 15518**
2 - under
20 Ha~ / 0. 96Ha
(48%) / 1.02Ha
(52%) / 43 / 0.86
(0.473) / 2.17 / 0.37*** / 3 / 0.06 / 0.15 / 2 / 0.04 / 0.1 / 2.79 / 1256**

~ Land Pooled for the illustrative example is assumed at 20 Ha for Category I and 2 Ha forCategory II.

^Residential BUA includes 15% of BUA for EWS Housing.

**Calculated at maximum density of 1000 persons per hectare of gross residential land and
density for 15% FAR reserved for EWS calculated at unit size of 32 sqm.
***Calculated as per MPD-2021 norms of 3 sqm per person for facilities.

The table explained as follows:

The Policy has two categories of land pooling which are called Category I forpoolingofland amounting 20 Ha and above and Category II for pooling of land amountingbetween2Ha. to less than 20 Ha.

  1. The land returned to Developer Entity (DE) in Category-I (20 Ha and above) willbe 60% and land retained by DDA 40%.
  2. The Land returned to Developer Entity (DE) in Category II (2 Ha to lessthan20Ha) will be 48% and land retained by DDA 52%. The distributionofdevelopment rights on the land returned to DE (48%) intermsoflanduseinCategory II will be 43% as Gross residential, 2%CityLevelPublic/Semi-Publicand 3% City Level Commercial. The term Gross Residential is explained in detail
    under the Unique Features of DDA's Land Policy section of the report.
  3. The distribution of development rights on the land returned to DE (60%)intermsof land use in Category-I will be 53% Gross residential,2%CityLevelPublic/Semi-Public and 5% City Level Commercial.
  4. There is a further condition stipulating that the DE shall be returned landwithin5km radius of pooled land subject to other planning requirements.

The land surrendered to DDA i.e. 40% in the case of land pooled equal to ormorethan20Ha(approx. 50 acres) or 52% in the case of land pooled between2Ha(approx.5acres)tounder20Ha (less than 50 acres) shall be utilized for the following purposes:

•Transportation uses like Roads including city level expressways (ring roads, highwaysetc.), zonal roads connecting different major divisions of the city andsectorlevelroadswhich connect the different sectors within those zones; Mass Rapid Transit System(MRTS) uses such as Railways, elevated Metro, subwaysandtheirfeedersystemssuchas trams, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or bus corridorsandnon-motorisedvehiclenetworksetc.

•Utilities like Water Supply and treatment plants, Power generation and distributionunits, Sewerage treatment plants (STPs) and Solid waste managementsitesincludingsanitary landfills where all the city waste is dumped/buriedandsiteswheresegregationand recycling of waste is done for re-use or energy generation.

•City Level Greens and recreational uses like Zoos, City Parks, District parks,Stadiums,Botanical gardens, Bio-diversity parks etc. which enhance theenvironmentalandcultural value of the city's natural heritage.

•Development of Commercial and Public & Semi-Public uses at the City level,ifthelanduse distribution permits for remunerative purpose.

•All Industrial development in the urban extensions for remunerative purpose astheSupreme Court orders have banned heavy industries in Delhi and the newindustrialpolicy focuses on Hi-tech and IT/ITES industries.

Permissibility

The Land Pooling Policy is applicable in the proposed urbanisable areas of the UrbanExtensions for which Zonal Plans have been approved. The Zonal Development PlansofalltheZones in Urban Extension have demarcated their Green Belt where this policyisnotapplicableand the undeveloped land remaining under proposed urbanisable area except the LowDensityResidential Area (LDRA declared under DDA's regularization policy) is permissibleforlandpooling under this policy.

Land Use Distribution:

The Land Use distribution at the city level for the urbanisable areas in the urban extensiontobeadopted for this policy is as under:

•Gross Residential : 53%. (For every 1000 ha of Land pooled, the grossresidential distribution provides approximately 50,000 DU's forEWShousing.)

•Commercial : 5%

•Industrial : 4%

•Recreational :16%

•Public & Semi-Tublic Facilities :10%

• Roads & Circulation : 12%

The Recreational Land Use does not include green areas within the various gross land usecategories.The share of city level remunerative land to be retained by DDA shall depend on thecategories/size of land pooled under this policy. DDA's share in Residential land shall varybetween 0-10%, Commercial Land shall vary between 0-2% and entire Industrial land of 4%shall be retained by DDA.

Assumption of Steps in Implementation of the Policy

The implementation shall have a Declaration stage, Assembly or Pooling Stage and finallytheDevelopment or Construction Stage:

•Once the Policy is notified in the gazette after approval of MoU.D.and DDA has completedits preparatory work of digitizing all land records, maps and existing surveys sofar applicablezones for base data.

•Declaration of area to be opened for Land Pooling under this Policy which is the end oftheDeclaration Stage.

•Inviting applications for Land Pooling.

•Receiving applications along with certified copies of required documents from the
Developer Entity and issue of receipt for the same.

•Verification of legal records and documents by Legal Cell of Land Pooling Authority.

•Issue of Provisional Land Transfer Certificate after verification.

•End of period for receiving applications.

•Uploading details of land parcels with ownership etc. which were issued provisional LTCfor public scrutiny for a period of one month.

•Assessment of land pooled (as per provisional LTCs) out of declared area intended forlandpooling.

•Workshop within one month to facilitate pooling of remaining land, if any.

•Period of one month to accept applications for pooling the remaining land.

•Final issue of provisional LTC to DE's within one month.

•Declaration of Section 4 for acquisition of remaining land pockets, if any requiring a periodof one year.

•Hearing as per Land Acquisition Act and final option to pool land under this Policy beforecompulsory acquisition.

•Physical possession of land and verification on ground within three months.

•Nine months for preparing Layouts Plans and modifying Zonal Development Plans as perland available for pooling and determining actual locations of land to be returned to DEs.

•Approval of modification to ZDP by Central Government.

•Actual location of land returned to be uploaded in public domain.

•Hearing & Revision of complaints regarding location of land returned to DE.

•Issue of Land Transfer Certificate to DE without actual location or possession.

•After Planning Stage shall come the Development Stage where the DE shall apply for
Layout Plan approvals and after obtaining the same shall apply for Building Plan approvalsand begin construction after obtaining the same.

•During the approval and construction phase, DDA shall develop all the external
infrastructure and provide all the services to the DE within the time period of construction.

•After completion, completion certificates and provision of infrastructure with all otherpolicy requirements fulfilled shall end the process and permit possession to investors,customers etc.