Housing Societies In Mohali, Kharar And Zirakpur: What They Are, Who Approves Them, And How To Check One मोहाली, खरड़ और जीरकपुर में हाउसिंग सोसाइटीज़: ये क्या हैं, इन्हें कौन मंज़ूरी देता है, और किसी को कैसे चेक करें ਮੋਹਾਲੀ, ਖਰੜ ਅਤੇ ਜ਼ੀਰਕਪੁਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਹਾਊਸਿੰਗ ਸੋਸਾਇਟੀਆਂ: ਇਹ ਕੀ ਹਨ, ਇਹਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਕੌਣ ਮਨਜ਼ੂਰੀ ਦਿੰਦਾ ਹੈ, ਅਤੇ ਇੱਕ ਦੀ ਜਾਂਚ ਕਿਵੇਂ ਕਰੀਏ

Below the level of the big builders, this region runs on a second market that almost nobody writes about.

Hundreds of small societies and colonies across Mohali, Kharar, Zirakpur, Dhakoli and Dera Bassi, each with a few dozen to a few hundred homes, most of them decades old or built in the last fifteen years by promoters nobody outside the district has heard of. Ordinary housing, often good value, frequently long settled.

What a buyer wants to know about any of them is the same thing every time: what is this place, who signed off on it, and is it safe to buy into.

Three different things, sold under similar names

The first problem is that "society" and "colony" get used interchangeably and mean different things.

A cooperative house building society is a members' body. It is registered under cooperative law, it owns or holds the land, and you join it as a member rather than buying from a seller. Membership of a society is not the same as ownership of land, and a receipt for a membership payment is not a conveyance.

A licensed colony is a private development. A promoter obtains a licence to set up a colony, develops it, and sells plots or units to buyers who take title directly.

An authority scheme is GMADA, PUDA or a municipal body developing and allotting land itself.

All three produce places with similar-sounding names, and a listing rarely tells you which you are dealing with.

How a private colony is supposed to get approved

Punjab licenses colonies under the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995, usually shortened to PAPRA. GMADA describes the licence as involving two stages, and the sequence around it is fixed.

The promoter first has to be registered as a promoter, which runs on a five year validity with renewal to be applied for three months before expiry, and requires among other things an affidavit of non-conviction by any court in the preceding five years. The land needs a change of land use, converting it from agricultural to residential or commercial. The promoter then applies in Form APR-I, the authority issues a letter of intent, and on satisfying the conditions the licence is granted.

That letter of intent is a stage in colony licensing and has nothing to do with the LOI traded in the Aerotropolis pockets, which is a GMADA entitlement to a plot. Two different documents, the same three letters.

Change of land use sits before the licence in that chain. A colony whose CLU was defective has a problem upstream of everything built on top of it, which is exactly the mechanism at issue in the Suntec City case.

The lists that answer the question

All of this is public, and almost nobody opens it. GMADA carries most of it on its own site.

The approved colonies register is searchable by promoter name and carries licence expiry dates, which means it answers not only whether a colony was licensed but whether that licence is still running.

Office orders cancelling the licences of colonies are published alongside it. A colony that once held a licence and no longer does is a materially different proposition from one that never had one, and both are different again from one that holds a current licence.

The list of plots to whom NOCs have been issued under the regularisation policy is the record of unapproved development brought into the fold after the fact, governed by the 2018 notification on regularisation of unauthorised colonies, plots and buildings, with its own portal at punjabregularization.in.

And the promoter registration requirement means there is a record of who is entitled to sell at all.

Where these have been uploaded fully, as the Amritsar authority did under a state drive against illegal colonies, they carry khasra numbers, the duration of the licence and the layout plan, with copies sent to the Deputy Commissioner's office.

The shortcut worth knowing

One test cuts through all of it, and it comes from the authorities' own wording.

Licensed colonies and mega projects are listed as those for which an NOC is not required for registry.

Turn that around and you have a diagnostic. If a sale in a colony requires a no objection certificate before it can be registered, that colony is not on the licensed list. That does not automatically make it unlawful, since regularisation exists precisely for this situation, but it tells you which of the three tiers you are in without reading a single document.

So the question to ask, early and plainly, is whether registry in that colony needs an NOC. The answer is a fact rather than an opinion, and the seller will know it.

Regularisation is not a formality

Anyone told that a colony is unapproved but will be regularised should know what the success rate looks like.

In Patiala district, across the 2013 and 2018 regularisation policies, the Patiala Development Authority received 353 applications. Five passed. Two hundred and twelve were cancelled for lack of proper documentation and faulty declarations. Under the 2013 policy, 242 applications produced four regularisations. Under the 2018 policy, 111 applications produced one.

That is a different district and a different authority, but it is the same two state policies, and it is the only published measure of how often this route actually works.

What the enforcement record looks like

This is not a theoretical tier of the market.

In Zirakpur, the district administration moved against 37 housing colonies and societies that had not taken their final certificate after a one-year deadline expired, with officials saying registration of ownership of houses in those colonies could be put on hold. The colonies fall in Zirakpur, Pabhat, Lohgarh, Dyalpura, Peer Muchalla, Nabha, Nagla, Ramgarh Bhudda and Chhath, and they range in size from under 2,000 square yards to 15 acres. The stated reason was that the colonisers had failed to pay pending Local Bodies Department charges well past the deadline.

What was at risk there was not demolition but registration. People who had bought in those colonies faced not being able to register their own houses because of a payment their coloniser had not made.

Elsewhere the response has been physical. GMADA's regulatory branch demolished roads, sewerage lines, electricity poles and under-construction houses at five colonies in the Dera Bassi villages of Kheri, Sundra and Mor Lakhkri. In Jhampur, a GMADA team demolished 25 unauthorised constructions across several colonies including Guru Nanak Enclave, Sai Enclave Extension, Khui Enclave and Chirag Enclave, and dug up their roads.

The sales pattern behind it is old. In January 2000, the Zirakpur SDM ordered colonisers and property dealers to remove signboards reading "formal approval of colony awaited" and "to be approved by PUDA", and threatened cheating cases if they did not. Those colonisers held no licence from PUDA or the Nagar Panchayat.

Where societies differ, and why it matters more

For a cooperative housing society the checks are different, because the thing you are acquiring is different.

The society holds the land. What you get is membership, and converting that into individual ownership requires a sale deed executed in your name. Until that happens, the society owns the land and you own a position in the society.

In the Suntec City matter, the Enforcement Directorate has alleged that the society developed the project and collected more than ₹150 crore by enrolling members into the housing society without executing sale deeds. People had paid, lived with the expectation of ownership, and held nothing that would survive a title search.

So for a society, the questions are whether the society is registered, whether the land is in the society's name, whether a sale deed has been or can be executed in yours, and what the society's own records show about dues, disputes and litigation.

What the three tiers actually mean for a buyer

A licensed colony sits on a promoter registration, a change of land use, a letter of intent and a licence, each of which is a document that either exists or does not, and registry needs no NOC. The licence also has an expiry date, which is on the register.

A regularised colony was not licensed and has been brought into the fold afterwards, which is a real and lawful position, but registry needs an NOC and the paperwork may carry conditions, including a final certificate with a deadline attached. Thirty-seven colonies in the Zirakpur belt show what happens when that deadline passes.

An unapproved colony has none of it, and being told it will be regularised is not the same as it being regularised. The risk runs from a registry that cannot be completed to a bulldozer in Kheri.

A cooperative society is a different question entirely, because the tier system above describes colonies. What matters there is whether a sale deed exists in your name, and that is a yes or a no.

For anything sold as an apartment or unit rather than a plot, registration with Punjab RERA is a separate requirement from the PAPRA licence and does not substitute for it. Our comparison of GMADA, PUDA and RERA sets out which body does what, and the buyer's guide covers the wider document set.

Why this tier is worth the trouble

The smaller societies and colonies across Kharar, Zirakpur, Dhakoli and the older Mohali phases are where a great deal of ordinary housing in this district actually is. They are frequently better value than the branded alternatives, they are often long established with settled communities, and plenty of them are entirely in order.

The difficulty is that nothing about them is documented in the places buyers look. There is no brochure, no sales office, and no portal page setting out who licensed the place and when. What there is instead is a set of public lists maintained by the authority, which take an afternoon to work through and which very few people ever open.

Current listings across these areas sit on our Mohali page and Tricity page.

None of the above is legal advice, and the position for any particular colony or society turns on its own records.

---

Sources

- Issue of License for Setting up of Colony Under PAPRA, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority, on the two-stage licence under the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act, 1995, Form APR-I, and the listing of licensed colonies and mega projects for which an NOC is not required for registry
- Registration as Promoter, GMADA, on the promoter registration requirement, the five year validity, the renewal window and the non-conviction affidavit
- Approved Colonies, GMADA, for the register of approved colonies searchable by promoter name and carrying licence expiry dates
- Apply for Regularization of Unauthorized Colony, GMADA, on the 2018 policy for regularisation of unauthorised colonies, plots and buildings, and the list of plots to whom NOCs have been issued under it
- Development Authority rejects 212 illegal colonies, The Tribune, on the Patiala Development Authority's disposal of 353 regularisation applications under the 2013 and 2018 policies
- 37 illegal colonies in Zirakpur face action, Gaurav Kanthwal, The Tribune, on the colonies facing a hold on registration, the areas involved, the final certificate deadline and the unpaid Local Bodies Department charges
- GMADA razes 5 illegal colonies, The Tribune, on the demolitions at Kheri, Sundra and Mor Lakhkri
- Illegal structures razed in Mohali, The Tribune, on the 25 unauthorised constructions demolished at Jhampur
- Deceptive signboards to mislead investors, Bipin Bhardwaj, The Tribune, 11 January 2000, on the SDM's order against approval-awaited signboards in Zirakpur
- Rs 21 lakh tossed from flat in Kharar as ED raids Punjab realtors, The Tribune, 7 May 2026, on the allegation that more than ₹150 crore was collected by enrolling members into the housing society without executing sale deeds