What is Lal Dora land?

The term “LAL DORA” was used for the first time in the year 1908. It is a name clas­si­fic­a­tion given to that part of the vil­lage land which is part of the vil­lage “Abadi” (Hab­it­a­tion). It was sup­posed to be used for non agri­cul­tural pur­pose only. It is that part of the land which was sup­posed to have been an exten­sion of the vil­lage hab­it­a­tion, wherein the vil­la­gers used to have their sup­port sys­tems, live­stock etc. In the olden days, these areas were marked by the land rev­enue depart­ment by tying a Red Thread (Lal Dora in Hindi lan­guage) around it, to make a bound­ary and to dis­tin­guish it from the agri­cul­tural land. The lal Dora also denotes that the jur­is­dic­tion of the muni­cipal author­it­ies or the urban devel­op­ment is not applic­able, in toto.

In 1957, the Delhi muni­cipal cor­por­a­tion issued a noti­fic­a­tion n and the gov­ern­ment lis­ted the lands under the LAL DORA clas­si­fic­a­tion, within and on the out­skirts of Delhi.

Lal Dora was exempt from the build­ing bye laws, and strict con­struc­tion norms and reg­u­la­tions, as reg­u­lated under the Delhi muni­cipal act. There was / is no need to apply for the build­ing sanc­tion plans etc. In 1963, the MCD passed a noti­fic­a­tion which did not make it man­dat­ory for build­ing sanc­tion plans to be passed for the urban Lal Dora lands too.

Though the term Lal Dora applies to both Rural & Urban vil­lages, the thin divid­ing line has van­ished over the period of time, and prime areas of Delhi today (though still clas­si­fied as Lal Dora) oper­ate com­mer­cial & high end res­id­en­tial areas.

Vil­lages like Bas­ant Gaon, Munirka, Khirki, Yusuf sarai, Kat­waria sarai, Mahip­alpur, Chhatarpur, Sant Nagar, Rang­puri, Kan­jhawla, Najafgarh, Lado sarai, Mehrauli, Shah­pur Jatt etc. have all been absorbed into the developed lim­its of Delhi, and they form part of the elite areas.

The Lal Dora areas in some of the rural vil­lages, which are sur­roun­ded by agri­cul­tural land, have been included under the Delhi mas­ter plan MPD 2021. These Lal Dora lands would abutt the premium res­id­en­tial & com­mer­cial zones. To top it all, many such lal Dora areas would be extremely well con­nec­ted through the pro­posed ini­ti­at­ives of the gov­ern­ment to con­nect the Delhi city through a maze of Roads, express­ways, met­ros etc.

Many Lal Dora abadis have the facil­it­ies provided by the gov­ern­ment like secure elec­tri­city con­nec­tion, water from the Delhi Jal board, sew­er­age etc. After the New mas­ter plan of Delhi MPD 2021 is noti­fied, many agri­cul­tural lands of these vil­lages would be included in the res­id­en­tial or com­mer­cial zones. With the pro­vi­sion of infra­struc­ture to these areas, most of the erstwhile Lal Dora areas without these amen­it­ies & infra­struc­ture would be included.

Stat­ist­ics reveal that there are 362 vil­lages in Delhi, out of which 135 are clas­si­fied as urban vil­lages, and 227 are clas­si­fied as rural vil­lages. Dec­ades back, when the rev­enue set­tle­ment was under­taken for Delhi, for the first time, most of these vil­lages were well defined and the pop­u­la­tion was enu­mer­ated within those bound­ar­ies. The land out­side these Lal Dora lands was appraised for the pur­pose of land rev­enue, as Agri­cul­tural land. Between 1908 and 1952 (when the con­sol­id­a­tion exer­cise was taken up again), the pop­u­la­tion of these vil­lages expan­ded and the vil­lages too had exten­ded bey­ond the earlier defined bound­ar­ies. The new peri­phery bound­ar­ies were termed as “PHIRNI” and the areas between the earlier LAL DORA bound­ar­ies, and the “PHIRNI” was known as the exten­ded Lal Dora area.

In August 1963, a noti­fic­a­tion was issued by the then Delhi admin­is­tra­tion that no build­ing per­mis­sions are required for the con­struc­tion on the exten­ded Lal Dora land, too, if and since, the land owner is cre­at­ing a hab­it­a­tion / house for his own liv­ing / subsistence.

The above is only for inform­a­tion. The latest rules and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing com­mer­cial con­struc­tion on the Lal dora land would be as per the revised mas­ter plan norms. (ref. the Tejinder Khanna com­mit­tee recom­mend­a­tions ‚the expert com­mit­tee on lal dora report (2007) and the obser­va­tions of the Hon’ble Courts dir­ect­ive. This Author does not take liberty / respons­ib­il­ity of report­ing details of those decisions, to be framed and released at a later date.

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