Published on: Aug 02, 2025 08:18 am IST
The officer added that the government has already introduced the sand policy by making free sand available for houses and simplifying the environment-related regulations to push the ‘Housing For All’ program.
MUMBAI: The state government is undertaking a special drive, beginning today, to regularise thousands of slums in rural areas built on government land, in line with its policy of protecting all illegal houses that were constructed before January 1, 2011.
The state government had finalised the policy to regularise the illegal structures in 2018. For urban areas, it was finalised in 2019, though it is yet to be implemented.
The drive will expedite the process of transferring the land plots in the name of the occupants. Private land encroachments are regularised in exchange for the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) to the landowners. Meanwhile, there is a provision for urban local bodies to change the reservation of land as per the Housing For All-22 policy to regularise the slums on the government lands. The encroachments built before January 1, 2011, are eligible for regularisation under the ‘public housing’ or ‘housing for dishoused’ policies.
In rural areas, a three-member committee, under the sub-divisional officer of the respective tehsil, will take a call on the regularisation of the plots while handing them over to the occupants. The occupants will be charged at the stipulated rate for regularisation, which is higher for the illegal structures that were built between January 1, 2000 and January 1, 2011.
“The regularisation of the encroached lands in the name of the occupants in the rural areas will ensure the construction of the houses under PM Awas Yojana. In the absence of the regularisation of the encroached land, the state government is unable to achieve the expected pace in implementing the scheme. The state government has set the target of constructing 3 million houses under the scheme. The drive will help in expediting the process,” said an official from the revenue department.
The officer added that the government has already introduced the sand policy by making free sand available for houses and simplifying the environment-related regulations to push the ‘Housing For All’ program.
Revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said, “The drive will ensure the regularisation of the houses that were constructed until January 1, 2011, with the aim of giving thousands of beneficiaries houses they deserve.”