Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (Glada) has started a survey in illegal colonies to gather details about the total number of illegal colonies and the availability of basic amenities there. In the survey report, the officials will have to submit the exact number of illegal colonies by the end of January.
The state government has asked Glada officials to conduct a fresh survey in the area under their jurisdiction and find out the number of illegal colonies before formation of new regularisation policy for unauthorized colonies. The survey report will also be inclusive of the availability of basic amenities like water supply, sewerage, street lights and parks in the illegal colonies. The staff have been asked to certify that there are no other illegal colonies apart from the ones showing up on the list. In case of the name of more illegal colonies coming up after the survey, the concerned staff will be held responsible.
Meanwhile, the estate officer (regulatory) of Glada Harpreet Sekhon said government has asked the officials to conduct a fresh survey just to check the status of illegal colonies especially the basic amenities in these colonies. He said that they have to complete the survey by January 31.
However, the Glada officials have been complaining that they have been given very short notice to conduct the survey. They claimed that there are more than 1800 illegal colonies under their jurisdiction and out of these around 1,100 are in Ludhiana only. The officials said they should have been given more time in case they came across colonies that they did not know about already.
Recently the government has also sought public opinion about the illegal colonies in the entire state. All this is being done to form a suitable policy for the regularisation of these colonies.