GHAZIABAD: Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) is set to create a separate master plan for villages that will be assimilated within the development authority’s influence area.
These 61 villages are within 500m on both sides of Delhi Meerut Expressway (DME) and Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE) — 32 along DME and 29 along EPE.
A GDA official said, “A separate master plan will help regulate growth around these villages. We plan to hire a consultant to prepare it, which will be incorporated into the district’s unified Master Plan 2031. These villages were earlier governed by gram panchayats, so a plan was mooted to bring villages within 500m on both sides under GDA. The GDA board in March cleared decks for the assimilation of these villages, which will now come into effect after notification from the state govt. DME and EPE — since their commissioning — opened up growth opportunities. At the same time, due to their proximity to nearby villages, they are also witnessing exponential and unregulated growth.”
In 2011-12, the NCR planning cell, in its sub-regional plan, mooted the idea on the grounds that once DME and EPE become operational, villages by the side of the two expressways would see exponential growth.
Since the said number of villages do not come under the ambit of any development authority, there are chances that it will trigger unplanned growth.
An NCR Planning Board official said, “In 2018, we wrote to GDA seeking to table the proposal at its board meeting. According to our survey, these villages fall along both sides of EPE in Modinagar, Loni in Ghaziabad and Kekhra in Baghpat district. Likewise, on the DME side, most of these villages are in Modinagar and Ghaziabad city side.”
Apart from 61 villages, there were 16 additional villages under Hapur-Pilakhua Development Authority (HPDA), which the GDA planned to assimilate within its jurisdiction. GDA contended that these villages are within the administrative jurisdiction of GDA and are part of HPDA, so assimilation was necessary.
But in Aug, the vice-chairperson of HPDA wrote a dissent note to the Meerut divisional commissioner opposing the assimilation of these villages and since then, the matter is on hold.
