Decks have been cleared for Mohali's District Administrative and Courts Complex (DACC) in Sector 76 here.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court Building Committee has cleared the site and the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, which owns the prime land located in the middle of the city, and has agreed to allot it for public utility. Deputy Commissioner Rahul Bhandari has forwarded the minutes of the meeting of the High Court Building Committee to GMADA Chief Administrator (CA) Vivek Partap Singh, seeking allotment of the land.

Confirming the development, GMADA CA told Newsline that the Deputy Commissioner has sought allotment of 15 acres. “I will write back to him to get the land allotment requisition moved by the state government through the Finance department for its acceptance,” said Singh.

He said, “On getting formal requisition, we will put up the matter before the authority meeting for formal approval, following which, demand notice will be issued, asking to deposit 50 per cent of the total cost of the land. He added that the rate of land for public purpose would be concessional.

The development assumes significance as even after nearly three years of attaining the district status, Mohali is still deprived of DACC, despite tall claims of SAD president Sukhbir Badal of transforming the satellite district headquarter of Chandigarh in to the ‘Future City’. In the absence of DACC, the district civil, police and judicial officials lack permanent official and residential accommodation. While the district civil and police wings are temporarily working from the old building of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) in Phase I here, the district judicial courts are operating from a community centre in Phase 3B1. Also, some community centres house police lines and a police station. As per the preliminary drawing prepared by the Punjab Chief Architect, the selected 15 acres will not house residential complex. “For making provisions of residential accommodation, some other site in the vicinity will be selected,” said the DC. The selected site is part of the 34-acre chunk of prime land recently vacated by the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) from its allotted chunk of 200 acres on the southern side in exchange of regularisation of its encroachment on 34 acres on northern side of Sector 76. While nearly 10 acres of the vacated 34 acres were to be allotted by GMADA to six cooperative house building societies, which were awaiting land allotted to them in 2004 for construction of multi-storey flats in Mohali, almost 15 acres was expected to be left vacant after making provisions of roads and other public utilities.

A 22-acre site in Saneta village and another 3.83 acres in Sector 62 were earlier earmarked for the DACC but due to certain reasons, both these sites were rejected.