With an eye on the state assembly polls due at the end of this year, the BJP Government in Madhya Pradesh has legalised more than 6,000 unauthorised colonies located in urban areas across the state.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will officially declare all these hitherto illegal colonies legal at a grand function to be held at the CM House in Bhopal on 23 May. He will also hand over the approved maps of plots in the legalized colonies of Bhopal to their owners during the function.

State Urban Development and Housing Minister Bhupendra Singh said on Thursday that similar functions would be held simultaneously on 23 May in all the urban bodies where similar illegal colonies have been legalised in the state.

Singh informed that the decision to legalise the illegal colonies in the state was taken by Chief Minister Chouhan himself.

In order to implement the decision, the state Urban Development and Housing Department has had to draft, formulate and implement new rules. After the new rules came into force, about 6000 illegal colonies have been declared legal.

The minister said as a result of being legalised, the residents of all such colonies would start getting several benefits. They would become eligible beneficiaries of many government schemes, get bank loans sanctioned and build houses with government-approved maps in such colonies.

Singh informed that after the preliminary publication of a list of 2,282 colonies in municipal corporations and subsequent finalization of 1,032 layouts, the building permission has been accorded and works initiated in 929 such colonies.

Similarly, preliminary publication of a list of 3,792 colonies, and layouts of 299 colonies have been published and finalized in the limits of municipal councils and city councils across Madhya Pradesh.

According to the new rules, the state government has set a target of completing all the formalities of the legalisation process of colonies by June this year.

The Assembly elections in MP are scheduled to take place at the end of this year. The recent unfavourable outcome in the Karnataka Assembly polls has made the ruling BJP in MP jittery.