Slum dwellers may own land in Dehradun following survey

DEHRADUN: The Dehradun district administration along with other nodal agencies will re-identify slum clusters and categorise them in order to grant land owning rights to the dwellers, following pending orders of the state government from 2016. According to previous reports, there are 128 such clusters in Dehradun district among which 70 were on private land.
The others have to be classified in three categories following a re survey -- those where land owning rights can be provided (mostly located on lands owned by civic bodies), those where a few changes in terms of security and facilities can be made to provide these rights (like those owned by the state, railways, forest department etc) and those where this is not an option."We will start the survey from Wednesday, which might change the overall figure. We will submit the report to the state government which will provide further instructions about any required relocation or providing the dwellers with land owning status," said district magistrate, Dr R Rajesh Kumar.

The surveys are being conducted across the state following instructions from the office of Shailesh Bagauli, secretary, Urban development department, Uttarakhand. "The proposal is there and once the categorisation process is completed, we will proceed," said an official.