Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh's government will soon introduce a legislation for regularisation of illegal colonies and transfer of ownership rights to the occupants. A decision to this affect was taken at a review meeting of the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday.

Chairing the review meeting, CM directed the setting up of a committee, headed by the chief secretary, to formulate a legislation for regularisation of illegal colonies.

The committee will look into the issue of such colonies built by private promoters, on municipal corporation (MC) land and on land outside MC limits, respectively. 

Captain Amarinder also directed to initiate the process of allotting free houses for the homeless poor, as promised in the Congress poll manifesto.

CM directed the Town Planning Department to complete work on preparing Master Plans of all the cities in the state by the end of the current financial year.

The meeting further decided on a series of measures, including allotment of project-based no due certificate (NDC) to promoters, in order to ease the real estate business in the state.

The NDC will now be valid for three months, to be taken by the department on the date of application for a particular service rather than on date of delivery of service.

A mobile app has also been launched, with effect from Tuesday, to facilitate the online procurement of property records by the allottees.

The CM directed the department to initiate the process of identification and scrutiny of beneficiaries for free houses under the Mukhya Mantri Awas Yojana (Cm Housing scheme), as promised in the election manifesto.

It was also decided to implement the poll promise of 30 per cent reservation for scheduled castes (SCs) in all future allotments, besides subsidised loans to families for buying middle income group (MIG) housing. The meeting agreed to bring in a new need-based policy for low income group (LIG) housing.

CM directed the department to come up with a detailed plan for the amalgamation of various Real Estate authorities to ensure better service for the citizens.

Among the other key decisions taken at the meeting were single-window clearance for small investors in five major cities, fixing of reasonable reserve prices for plots and sites, review of policy to allow medium sized real estate housing project, inclusion of economically weaker section residential projects in industrial zones in all master plans.