204 new colonies on agricultural land approved in Punjab

Chandigarh, Feb 23 (UNI) The Punjab government has identified 34 new sites in rural areas to set up urban estates and private colonies, while as many as 204 new colonies have been approved in the last one year in the state.

Announcing this in the Punjab Assembly here today, Housing and Urban Development minister Raghunath Sahai Puri said that 162 licenses were issued to the private colonisers from 1996-97 up to January one 2006.

In the last one year, the maximum number of new colonies approved by the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) were 42 in Patiala district alone, followed by 41 colonies in Ropar district. This would entail nearly 1,423 acres of agricultural land being taken up for urban use in the two districts.

As per the proposed urbanisation by the PUDA, nearly 1200 acres of agricultural land was being converted into urbanised region since the fiscal 2002-03, he added.

The other districts where new colonies were approved by PUDA in the last one year included Jalandhar (31), Ludhiana (20), Amritsar (15), Gurdaspur (ten), Bathinda (nine), Fatehgarh Sahib (eight), Kapurthala (eight), Ferozepur (six), Sangrur (six), Hoshiarpur (five) and Faridkot (three).

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