The DDA and Ministry for Urban Development are trying to arrive at a solution, but soaring land prices are making the search more difficult. Details obtained by Rajeev Sapra, who invoked the Right to Information (RTI) Act to access documents, show not only that the DDA is trying to wriggle out but also that the scheme was badly planned to begin with.

Work on the scheme formally began in 1988, but allotments haven’t been made even though the size of plots was reduced. In September 1988, the DDA decided to draw up a priority list of 25,857 subscribers (8,266 for MIG, 13,182 for LIG, and 4,409 for Janata category) yet to get the plots using a computerised draw.

Over the next eight years, the DDA prepared an action plan and acquired more than 2,000 hectare of land. In 2006 responding to questions in Parliament, the DDA offered assurances that it would meet the demand of those waitlisted. It was also looking at the possibility of carving out 12,000 plots from land it was planning to acquire. But a boom in property prices ensured a change of plans.

In 2006, the DDA put out a “Policy Paper regarding changes in the Rohini Residential Scheme, 1981”, which concluded that returning waiting applicants’ deposits at a higher rate of interest (15 per cent) and closing “this ill-conceived” scheme was administratively the simplest way out.

The DDA, however, said there were hurdles, including the: “The commitments made in Parliament to wipe out the backlog as well as the implicit moral contract that the DDA has with these registrants, many of whom are now old pensioners who keep appearing in public forums to follow up their cases. This is going to be a sensitive issue from the social, political and legal angles”.

Meanwhile, the DDA continued surveys on how it could meet the need for land and also made sizeable acquisitions for the scheme. However, sections within the DDA felt that the scheme had outlived its utility.

MoUD documents say: “It has been observed that the scheme has long outlived its utility and it primarily is a source for people to get windfall earnings due to differential in the cost at which land is being allotted by the DDA at the current pre-determined rate. This differential of nearly Rs 25,000 per square metre leads to a tendency for speculation/ sale of allotment letters.”

The DDA also cited its efforts to make Delhi slum-free before the Commonwealth Games had made land available with it even scarcer. So as it proposed the closing of the scheme it also turned to Amarendra Sharan, the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) of India, for legal opinion.

In May 2006, the ASG, after taking into consideration that the Lieutenant Governor had given his approval to the closing of the scheme, opined that: “it has been pointed out that now most of the registrants have sold their chances to allotment to property dealers, which has led to speculative sale. Land is also required for the clearance of slum dwellers. The whole scenario shows that these facts are beyond the control of the DDA.”

The legal expert also said that by offering a higher rate of interest the DDA was finding a suitable way out. DDA officials keen to end the problem tried to convince applicants to accept higher interest rates or flats instead of plots. But they had another question: why did the DDA acquire land when it did not want to allot it to those genuinely registered with it?