Farm side story

There is no dearth of buy­ers for farm­houses even though prices jumped sharply after the exten­sion of amnesty to those with unau­thor­ised construction

Farm­house own­ers in Delhi would have been over­joyed when the Par­lia­ment recently passed the National Cap­ital of Delhi Laws (Spe­cial Pro­vi­sions), Second Bill 2011, Pro­vi­sions), Second Bill 2011, to make spe­cial pro­vi­sions for the city for a fur­ther three years begin­ning Janu­ary 1 this year. This extends the earlier act that was valid till last Decem­ber. In simple terms, the new act extends by three years the amnesty provided by the pre­vi­ous one to farm­house own­ers who faced action for unau­thor­ised con­struc­tion on their land and against acquis­i­tion of their farm­houses under any earlier notification.

Accord­ing to a sur­vey con­duc­ted by the Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tion of Delhi (MCD) a few years ago, there were 2800 farm­houses on about 7500 acres of land in the city. By last year, there were an estim­ated 3000-plus farm­houses spread over 10,000 acres of land. In the past two dec­ades, the author­it­ies noti­fied about 5000 acres of land for acquis­i­tion in 13 vil­lages. The farm­houses that were on the noti­fied land stood to be affected.
The pro­posed acquis­i­tion mat­ter was chal­lenged in court. In 2009, the court held that the land could be acquired. There was much protest against the move for acquis­i­tion fol­low­ing which the gov­ern­ment provided pro­tec­tion to the farm­houses with the rider that noth­ing was to change till the Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA) for­mu­lated a proper policy in con­sulta­tion with the stake­hold­ers. The dead­line for this was December-end. The recent act extends this by three years.

Farm­house own­ers were delighted last year when the gov­ern­ment had tried to usher in a farm­house policy that provided for reg­u­lar­isa­tion of all farm­houses includ­ing those with unau­thor­ised con­struc­tion or those on noti­fied land.
The then draft policy allowed farm­houses a built up area of 30% against the earlier 1% lim­it­a­tion. The greatest bounty that the draft provided was per­mis­sion for farm­houses of spe­cified sizes to have fit­ness centres, non-invasive health and natur­o­path clin­ics, amuse­ment parks and resorts, among other things.

How­ever, the draft was emphat­ic­ally shot down by non-official mem­bers of the DDA com­pris­ing MLAs and muni­cipal coun­cilors from the Con­gress and the BJP. The mem­bers labelled and decried the draft as a shock­ing move for the bene­fit of farm­house own­ers, many of whom are the rich and powerful.

As the draft was then seem­ingly shelved and a farm­house policy is awaited, the government’s exten­sion of amnesty for another three years did spell relief to the farm­house own­ers in as much as that at least no action would be taken against unau­thor­ised con­struc­tion and that no land will be acquired.

Not all the non-official mem­bers of the DDA though are impressed by the exten­sion of the amnesty. One of the nonof­fi­cial mem­bers, BJP MLA Harsh Vard­han, who is also former BJP Delhi pres­id­ent, said that the gov­ern­ment ought to have framed a clear policy. Why just post­pone a decision and keep the sword hanging on those affected?
The gov­ern­ment needs to factor in the require­ments for imple­ment­ing the Mas­ter Plan and pave the way to build neces­sary infra­struc­ture even if it means acquir­ing land for roads and other pub­lic bene­fit pro­jects, he said.

Another non-official mem­ber, Con­gress MLA Subhash Chopra, who is also former Delhi Pra­desh Con­gress Com­mit­tee pres­id­ent, said the basic pri­or­ity are the poorer sec­tions, so the author­it­ies should for­mu­late schemes that would bene­fit them. The gov­ern­ment should not drag its feet in for­mu­lat­ing policies, he said.

Mean­while, the price of farm­houses and farm­house land has risen to unex­pec­ted heights. This is espe­cially so in the wake of the recently passed bill that extends the amnesty period. Farm­house own­ers who faced the pro­spect of action against unau­thor­ised con­struc­tion in their prop­er­ties or pos­sible acquis­i­tion were the ones who most benefited.

Since this also lif­ted the cloud of uncer­tain­ity on the fate of such prop­er­ties, the prices appre­ci­ated enorm­ously. A real estate agent Sandeep Chaudhury of Sagar Prop­er­ties says that the price of farm­houses and farm­land has grown three times what it was even six months ago. In West End Green in Rajokri, a two-and-half acre farm­house could cost around R100 crore, he cited an example.

Inter­est­ingly even though prices have sharply climbed, there are no dearth of buyers.

A factor that has added to the upswing in prices is the low avail­ab­il­ity of farm­house prop­er­ties on sale. Real estate agents attrib­ute two reas­ons for this pat­tern. One, farm­houses are owned by the super rich who do not really need the money. Second, those farm­house own­ers who want to make a profit by selling their prop­er­ties are await­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of the Mas­ter Plans’s pro­vi­sion that per­mits a farm­house on one acre of land. Till now farm­houses are only per­miss­ible on a min­imum of two-and-half acres.
Once it becomes legal to have farm­houses on a smal­ler piece of land, many own­ers might want to carve out one-acre plots out of their farm­house land and sell them sep­ar­ately and make much more money.

So, the farm­houses enjoy a charmed pos­i­tion in the list of the most prime real estate holdings.

Source: HT Estates
Dated: 4^th Feb. 2012    
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HD/2012/02/04/ArticleHtmls/Farm-side-story-04022012235002.shtml?Mode=1

 

The Cap­ital is a land of opportunities

The Mas­ter Plan is expec­ted to throw up  a huge sup­ply of hous­ing in the R20 lakh to R36 lakh range

 

For the unini­ti­ated, the National Cap­ital Ter­rit­ory of Delhi is Ter­rit­ory of Delhi is divided into 15 zones as per the new Mas­ter Plan. Out of these, A to H, P, M and K1 are in urban Delhi, while J, K2, L, N and P2 fall in what is known as an urban exten­sion. Also, with the pop­u­la­tion expec­ted to rise to 230 lakh by the end of this dec­ade and the pro­jec­ted hous­ing demand pegged at more than two mil­lion homes, which means a need for two lakh dwell­ing units a year (a require­ment that gov­ern­ment author­it­ies may not be able to ful­fill), the new plan seeks to focus on public-private part­ner­ships and has a pro­vi­sion that provides for entry of private developers in the acquis­i­tion and devel­op­ment of ‘new’ Delhi land.

 

“We require 15 lakh dwell­ing units by 2020. The gov­ern­ment does not have the capa­city or the where­withal to accom­plish this task. Hence, the need for the private sec­tor to step in,“ points out A K Jain, former Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA) Plan­ning Com­mis­sioner. Inter­est­ingly, sev­eral lead­ing private developers have already begun acquir­ing land in some of these new zones.
Private equity funds are also eye­ing these new oppor­tun­it­ies being made avail­able in Delhi.

 

The Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA) is ready with a revised ver­sion of a policy that will intro­duce private play­ers in the pub­lic infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment domain.

 

Titled public-private par­ti­cip­a­tion in land assembly and devel­op­ment in Delhi, it is pending the lieu­ten­ant governor’s approval. The emphasis is on altern­at­ive modes of land assembly involving the private sec­tor in the assembly and devel­op­ment of land and pro­vi­sion of infra­struc­ture ser­vices. The policy stip­u­lates that a landowner, or a group of land own­ers or a private developer will be “per­mit­ted to pool the land in an iden­ti­fied area or oth­er­wise for uni­fied plan­ning and servicing“.

 

If imple­men­ted well, the Mas­ter Plan could turn out to be the biggest real estate oppor­tun­ity of recent times.
How­ever, the chal­lenge, say realty experts, is how soon the gov­ern­ment facil­it­ates the par­ti­cip­a­tion of the private sec­tor through clear­ances and level play­ing fields.

 

Ration­al­isa­tion in prices Real estate experts are of the view that the new res­id­en­tial oppor­tun­it­ies that the new Mas­ter Plan is likely to cre­ate will lead to ration­al­isa­tion of res­id­en­tial prices in the sur­round­ing areas. Delhi will throw up the largest sup­ply of hous­ing in the R20 lakh and R36 lakh price band due to the advant­age asso­ci­ated with buy­ing land cheap, today. Developers and investors who buy land now can afford to prof­it­ably provide sup­ply in this price band. Delhi will com­pete with areas such as Gur­gaon and Noida. The largest demand lies in the mid and afford­able hous­ing segment.

 

This is because of favour­able land pri­cing. The sur­round­ing mar­kets are cre­at­ing lowcost/affordable hous­ing pro­jects almost 60 – 80 km away from the CBD areas of Delhi, with low infra­struc­ture and trans­port­a­tion con­nect. The Delhi oppor­tun­ity would mean qual­ity life­styles, afford­ab­il­ity through the MPD vis­ion of integ­rated sub-cities. If one were to ana­lyse the cur­rent real estate mar­ket scen­ario, one will find that while Gurgaon’s res­id­en­tial prices have shot up and Noida prices are under check due to fresh sup­ply in the mar­ket, the huge land sup­ply in Delhi may see pro­jects being launched at R4500 to R5500 per sq ft in some of these new zones due to tough competition.

 

The life­lines of these new zones will be a 100-metre urban express­way road that will ori­gin­ate at NH 1 and cut through NH 10, NH 8 and go up to NH 2; and the UER 1 (which is 80 metres) and which will ori­gin­ate at NH 1 and cut through NH 10, to ter­min­ate at NH 8. It would be what the Noida-Greater Noida Express­way is for the east­ern sub­urbs. Once the 100-metre UER-II is ready, driv­ing to Rohini from the air­port and south Delhi will just take 30 minutes.

 

The new green belt MPD 2021 envis­ages a num­ber of changes related to the loc­a­tion (in the green belt) and con­struc­tion of such types of prop­er­ties. Out of the 15 zones, A to H, P, M and K1 are in urban Delhi and J, K2, L, N and P2 fall in ‘urb­an­is­able’ area or urban extension.

 

The doc­u­ment stip­u­lates that land up to the depth of one peri­pheral vil­lage rev­enue bound­ary along the bor­der of National Cap­ital Ter­rit­ory (NCT) would be main­tained as green belt. New farm­houses will only be allowed in this green belt with the rest being put to use for forestry, agri­cul­ture, dairy farms etc.

 

Dated: 4^th Feb. 2012
Source: Hindus­tan Times
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HD/2012/02/04/ArticleHtmls/The-Capital-is-a-land-of-opportunities-04022012233002.shtml?Mode=1

 

Set­ting a ver­tical limit
Dated: 4^th Feb. 2012
Source: HT Estates

While the Mas­ter Plan Delhi 2021 allows for third-floor expan­sion, its leg­al­ity is depend­ent on the Supreme Court’s final hear­ing due in March

 

Here are vari­ous aspects to the con­struc­tion of third floors Tin res­id­en­tial colon­ies, as provided by the Mas­ter Plan for Delhi 2021 (MPD 2021) in 2007. One of these is that the Supreme Court inter­vened and per­mit­ted ver­tical expan­sion only with riders.
Another one is that the MPD 2021 neg­lects the effect of the immin­ent third floor tak­ing its toll on the ever­ex­pand­ing National Cap­ital Ter­rit­ory of Delhi (NCT).

 

The MPD 2021 was noti­fied by the Min­istry of Urban Devel­op­ment, Gov­ern­ment of India (MoUD) on the Feb­ru­ary 7, 2007. Con­sequently amend­ments were made from time to time. A mas­ter plan or the MPD 2021 is a blue print that provides guid­ance for the future extent and devel­op­ment of a city. Typ­ic­ally, mas­ter plans are reviewed every five years and it is repor­ted that the MoUD is cur­rently in the pro­cess of review­ing MPD 2021.

 

The story of the planned devel­op­ment in the NCT began in 1962, when its first mas­ter plan was for­mu­lated i.e. MPD 62, in line with the pro­vi­sions of the Delhi Devel­op­ment Act, 1957.
Under this act and to pro­mote the planned devel­op­ment of Delhi, the Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA) was constituted.

 

In 1982, the MPD 62 was revised to for­mu­late the mas­ter plan 2001 and then revised once again in 2007 to for­mu­late the MPD 2021.
One of the key devel­op­ments pro­posed in MPD 2021 was the exten­sion of the ver­tical limit for res­id­en­tial plots to 15 metres effect­ively per­mit­ting own­ers to con­struct third floors on top of exist­ing premises.
How­ever, blue­prints spe­cify­ing the future of urban devel­op­ment have often run into tech­nical and prac­tical problems.

 

Within a year, in its order dated March 14, 2008, the Supreme Court per­mit­ted own­ers to con­struct third floors sub­ject to fur­nish­ing an under­tak­ing to the rel­ev­ant author­it­ies (NDMC, DDA etc). The under­tak­ing should state that, if the Supreme Court rules in the ongo­ing case (MC Mehta vs Union of India) that MPD 2021 is not in accord­ance with applic­able laws, no equit­able rights will be claimed by the own­ers in rela­tion to con­struc­tion of third floors in res­id­en­tial colon­ies. Fur­ther, trans­fer­ees are also not entitled to any equit­able rights. The mat­ter is sched­uled to come up for final hear­ing later in March this year.

 

How­ever, some own­ers have already expan­ded their res­id­en­tial spaces in the hope that the Supreme Court will pass a favour­able order and reg­u­lar­ise their third floor con­struc­tions.
These own­ers run the risk of their ver­tical expan­sions being deemed illegal if the Supreme Court returns with an adverse verdict.

 

While ver­tical expan­sion con­tem­plated under the MPD 2021 may provide for the devel­op­ment of the over­all size and pat­tern of an urban set­tle­ment, it doesn’t seem to have accoun­ted for other crit­ical factors includ­ing phys­ical infra­struc­ture (roads, elec­tri­city, water etc), trans­port, envir­on­ment and other insti­tu­tional facil­it­ies. One of the terms for expan­sion of res­id­en­tial plots under the MPD 2021 provides that ‘addi­tional num­ber of dwell­ing units would be sub­ject to pay­ment of levy for aug­ment­a­tion of civic infra­struc­ture’. It could be argued that the infra­struc­ture should have been developed before the per­mis­sion to con­struct the third floors. The organic growth of res­id­en­tial colon­ies have already stretched our resources and there­fore the ‘planned devel­op­ment’ of high rises may res­ult in the non-alignment of urban plan­ning with avail­ab­il­ity of resources, res­ult­ing in higher costs to com­munit­ies on the whole.

 

A mas­ter plan needs to orches­trate the devel­op­ment of phys­ical and sus­tain­able infra­struc­ture to ensure that sus­tain­able com­munit­ies are delivered. Ayn Rand has said ‘a build­ing has integ­rity just like a man and just as seldom’.

 

The author is a law­yer and urban plan­ner with Trilegal, a legal firm based in India The planned vis­ion The story of planned devel­op­ment in the NCT began in 1962, when its first mas­ter plan was for­mu­lated ie MPD 62, in line with the pro­vi­sions of the Delhi Devel­op­ment Act, 1957 In 1982, the MPD 62 was revised to for­mu­late the Mas­ter Plan 2001 and then revised once again in 2007 to for­mu­late the MPD 2021 The issues at hand One of the key devel­op­ments pro­posed in MPD 2021 was the exten­sion of the ver­tical limit for res­id­en­tial plots to 15 metres effect­ively per­mit­ting own­ers to con­struct third floors on top of exist­ing premises. In its order dated 14 March 2008, the Supreme Court per­mit­ted own­ers to con­struct third floors sub­ject to fur­nish­ing an under­tak­ing to the rel­ev­ant author­it­ies (NDMC, DDA etc).

 

The under­tak­ing should state that, if the Supreme Court rules that MPD 2021 is not in accord­ance with applic­able laws, no equit­able rights will be claimed by the own­ers in rela­tion to con­struc­tion of third floors in res­id­en­tial colon­ies One of the terms for expan­sion of res­id­en­tial plots under the MPD 2021 provides that ‘addi­tional num­ber of dwell­ing units would be sub­ject to pay­ment of levy for aug­ment­a­tion of civic infrastructure’

 

 

 

Is there a need to review MPD 2021 ?
Dated: 4^th Feb 2012
Source: HT Estates

Rapid pop­u­la­tion growth in the Cap­ital region calls for a relook at the Mas­ter Plan Delhi 2021, writes Vandana Ramnani

Union min­is­ter for urban develn opment Kamal Nath recently d poin­ted out the need for a revir sion of Mas­ter Plan Delhi 2021, (MPD 21) hich was passed in vi 2006, say­ing it had not taken S account the ground real­it­ies it and argued that Delhi was th grow­ing at a phe­nom­enal pace ti and the exist­ing plan had failed L to meet the needs of the city. n “The cur­rent plan has not m been able to cope with the city’s growth, lead­ing to an s increase in unathor­ised u colon­ies, slums and jhug­gim jhop­ris. The Mas­ter Plan does s not take into account ground th real­it­ies and pop­u­la­tion growth. There is need to bring p in modi­fic­a­tions in land use p and devel­op­ment norms… it com­mer­cial­isa­tion along o major trans­port net­works, like the Metro, should be a taken up,“ he said. The min­is­ter also added th that the gov­ern­ment was tryh ing to draw future plans keep­e­ing in mind the pro­jec­ted popth ula­tion growth. “The pop­u­lad tion has increased and our si plan­ning could not match that r pace. Now, we are try­ing to s plan tak­ing into account what st the pop­u­la­tion size would be in 2015 or 2030. The Mas­ter Plan should not be cre­ated look­ing at the past 30 years, but should be cre­ated look­ing at the com­ing 30 years.“

 

Real estate experts point out that the minister’s state­ment should be wel­come since he is talk­ing about bring­ing con­tem­por­ary and rel­ev­ant changes to the many minor noti­fic­a­tions on the MPD 2021.
“I do not think that Nath’s sug­ges­tion is to make whole­sale changes to the MPD doc­u­ment, nor should it be read as scrap­ping the one already noti­fied,“ says Ramesh Menon, dir­ector, Certes Realty Ltd, a real estate consultancy.

 

The MPD-21 was noti­fied vide a gov­ern­ment of India (No SO 141 dated Feb 7, 2007) and it can­not be scrapped unless the Parliament/other author­it­ies approve the same.
Like­wise, the zonal plans were noti­fied in 2010 vide gov­ern­ment orders.

 

The MPD and zonal plans should be read as guid­ing doc­u­ments for the many vari­ous minor noti­fic­a­tions, which are sub­ject to “tweak­ing“ as per the local level require­ments, hence, the need for a local area plan which is inclus­ive and par­ti­cip­at­ory in nature, while it takes into account the ten­ets of the MPD, he says.

 

“The areas where the pub­lic at large should be debat­ing with the UD min­istry include the timelines that the min­is­ter has pro­jec­ted. Why should an empowered expert team need three years to look into the details? Also, let the dis­cus­sion not just revolve on the res­id­en­tial seg­ment, we need schools, industry, social infra­struc­ture, hos­pit­als, parks etc. The urban design as sug­ges­ted by the MPD need not be restrict­ive in nature, and should be more global in per­spect­ive,“ Menon says.

 

Accord­ing to Santhosh Kumar, CEO oper­a­tions, Jones Lang LaS­alle India, the review will have to take steps that will decon­gest the areas strug­gling to accom­mod­ate the ever-increasing pop­u­la­tion. It is also import­ant to ensure that growth does not come about at the cost of over­all char­ac­ter and sky­line of the city. Second, meas­ures should be taken to ensure that the infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment is in tune with the plan­ning so that the pres­sure on the civic amen­it­ies like water and elec­tri­city does not increase further.

 

But what is Mas­ter Plan 2021? Does it touch the life of the com­mon man in any way?
What is in it for him? The MPD 2021 envis­ages cre­ation of five new sub-cities, to unlock 60,000 hec­tares for devel­op­ment and redevel­op­ment for throw­ing up a large sup­ply of hous­ing within the city. It looks at cre­at­ing these new sub-cities within Delhi, big­ger than Dwarka and Rohini.

 

The Gurgaon-Noida story was based on the premise of lack of avail­ab­il­ity of land in Delhi. It was the abso­lute dearth of land in Delhi that forced people to look for options in the peri­phery. The new Mas­ter Plan is likely to change all that. What one knows as NCR (National Cap­ital Region) could soon be redefined as the NCT (National Cap­ital Territory).

 

 

 

 

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/PUBLICATIONS/HT/HD/2012/02/04/ArticleHtmls/Is-there-a-need-to-review-MPD-2021 – 04022012233001.shtml?Mode=1

 

Get build­ing plan nod in 2 months
Source: Times of India
Dated: 14^th Janu­ary 2012

NEW DELHI: Get­ting your build­ing plans sanc­tioned won’t be caught in red tape. NDMC has now brought six more cru­cial citizen-centric ser­vices under the ambit of the Ser­vice Level Agree­ment (SLA). Since Decem­ber last year, the agency has star­ted pro­cessing applic­a­tions related to sanc­tion­ing of build­ing plans, elec­tri­city and water con­nec­tions, book­ing of com­munity centres and parks, birth and death cer­ti­fic­ates and health trade licences , in a time-bound manner.

Now, build­ing plans will be sanc­tioned within 60 days.

“By bring these ser­vices under SLA, we are try­ing to stream­line the func­tion­ing of these depart­ments, so that people don’t have to face any incon­veni­ence. While sanc­tion­ing build­ing plans, mul­tiple para­met­ers like Mas­ter Plan Delhi-2021 , zonal plan, build­ing byelaws and guidelines regard­ing Luty­ens’ Delhi have to be taken into account. We get close to 20 – 30 such applic­a­tions per day,” said San­tosh D Vaidya, sec­ret­ary, NDMC.

Health trade licences — which are man­dat­ory for all eat­er­ies in NDMC areas — will be issued within 60 days.

In Septem­ber last year, the civic agency had brought two ser­vices under SLA. NDMC offi­cials say that elec­tri­city and water con­nec­tions will now be given within 30 days. “Com­munity halls can be booked in seven days and parks can be booked on the same day itself. We want to ensure that an effi­cient sys­tem is in place before we take our ser­vices online,” said Vaidya. “In the last few months, we have received close to 22,000 applic­a­tions under SLA and a major­ity of these have been cleared,” said Vaidya.

Mean­while, NDMC is plan­ning to upgrade its infra­struc­ture with an aim to boost rev­enue gen­er­a­tion.
The agency has star­ted the pro­cess of upgrad­a­tion of barat ghars, parks, devel­op­ment of 78 play­fields for chil­dren, a new work­ing women’s hostel and an old age home. “So far, work on 13 play­fields is com­plete,” said Vaidya.

 

Single-window clear­ance for build­ings soon
Source: Times of India
Dated: 12^th Janu­ary 2012

NEW DELHI: Get­ting the requis­ite clear­ance for your build­ing will soon be a breeze. Delhi Urban Arts Com­mis­sion (DUAC) is work­ing on a draft pro­posal that recom­mends sim­pli­fic­a­tion of build­ing bylaws and set­ting up of a single-window clear­ance sys­tem. The pro­posal will be sent to the urban devel­op­ment ministry.

The body is also toy­ing with the idea of estab­lish­ing a com­mit­tee of inde­pend­ent archi­tects to eval­u­ate the mer­its of build­ings which do not fol­low bylaws and con­sider whether they should get a waiver.

DUAC chair­per­son Raj Rewal said the present sys­tem of get­ting per­mis­sion for new build­ings is not only com­plex but also long-winded. “At present, build­ing bylaws require mul­tiple approvals of fire author­it­ies, air­port author­it­ies and Archae­olo­gical Sur­vey of India. It’s a long pro­ced­ure,” said Rewal.

 

3 ring roads to link city with high­ways
Source: Times of India
Dated: 4^th Janu­ary 2012

NEW DELHI: Driv­ing to national high­ways may be a breeze soon. DDA is plan­ning three con­cent­ric ring roads that will con­nect the city with national high­ways, thus cut­ting down on travel time to the NCR.

These roads will be built as the urban exten­sion roads (UER) under Mas­ter Plan Delhi though DDA said issues of land acquis­i­tion have to be settled. “We are work­ing on a plan to build con­cent­ric ring roads so that people can approach the national high­ways in 10 minutes,” said G S Pat­naik, vice-chairperson, DDA. These UERs will con­nect NH 1 to NH 8, NH 10 and NH 2.

Though Hary­ana chief min­is­ter Bhupinder Singh Hooda had alleged that DDA was not tak­ing any steps to con­struct link roads between the cap­ital and Gur­gaon, Pat­naik on Tues­day cla­ri­fied that three link roads had already been included in the zonal plans.

These roads will con­nect Vas­ant Kunj to DLF-III, Dwarka to Kherki Dhaula on NH 8 and Najafgarh to Rajiv Gandhi Edu­ca­tion City in Sonipat.

Pat­naik also said that the review of Mas­ter Plan Delhi is on with DDA already receiv­ing more than 2,000 sug­ges­tions and com­plaints from experts and the gen­eral pub­lic. DDA vice-chairperson G S Pat­naik said on Tues­day that 17 man­age­ment action groups had been formed to carry out the review pro­cess besides an advis­ory com­mit­tee and an advis­ory group work­ing under lieutenant-governor Tejendra Khanna.

“This group com­prises town plan­ners, experts and vari­ous offi­cials. The sug­ges­tions received will be con­sidered by the advis­ory com­mit­tee while review­ing Mas­ter Plan 2021,” Pat­naik said. Accord­ing to DDA, all sug­ges­tions will be com­piled and put up on its website.

He also said that DDA favoured transit-oriented devel­op­ment (TOD) along Metro Cor­ridors and that Delhi Metro Rail Cor­por­a­tion has already star­ted a sur­vey at Karkar­dooma sta­tion as well as at Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road.

The pro­ject includes con­struc­tion of high-density res­id­en­tial, office and com­mer­cial units along the Metro cor­ridor. Pat­naik said that DDA favoured the pro­ject as it will bring people closer to the Mass Rapid Transit Sys­tem dis­cour­aging them from using their own vehicles and adding to the traffic.

Talk­ing about the pro­jects under­taken and planned by DDA in the year gone by, Pat­naik also said that 53 com­munity centres will be con­struc­ted across the city and work on 19 of them was already underway.

Work on build­ing 20,000 houses for the eco­nom­ic­ally weaker sec­tion (EWS) using pre­fab tech­no­logy has already begun while the con­struc­tion of 24,000 flats for the Lower Income Group (LIG) is likely to start soon.

“In all, over one lakh EWS and LIG flats would be com­pleted in the next three years. These units are at vari­ous stages of plan­ning and con­struc­tion,” Pat­naik said.

He insisted that DDA was giv­ing pri­or­ity to EWS and LIG hous­ing to reduce the num­ber of illegal colon­ies in the city.

Though there are plans to intro­duce hous­ing scheme for the middle class too, Pat­naik refused to share the details. How­ever, he added that 12,000 demand let­ters had been issued to allottees.

The remain­ing 4,000 allot­tees will get them in the com­ing weeks. A socio-cultural centre on the lines of the India Hab­itat Centre is also in the pipeline in Dwarka.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/3-ring-roads-to-link-city-with-highways/articleshow/11357239.cms

Does higher Delhi mean cheaper flats in NCR?
Source: Hindus­tan Times
Dated: 21^st Dec. 2011

The reason why real estate in Gur­gaon and Noida is flour­ish­ing today is because land is scarce and hence expens­ive in Delhi. But with the Mas­ter Plan pro­pos­ing ver­tical growth of the Cap­ital res­ult­ing in a leap in hous­ing, will prices of Delhi’s tony neigh­bours be affected? Most experts believe
so.

The Mas­ter Plan intends to unlock large tracts of land pock­ets in Delhi, mostly in peri­pheral and untapped areas such as Narela, Najafgarh, Kan­jhawla, Bawana and exten­sions of Rohini and Dwarka. Super tall struc­tures are expec­ted to come up in most of these areas with private part­ner­ships, which would sup­ply 14 lakh new hous­ing units.

“Gur­gaon and Noida are thriv­ing today because no new hous­ing was being developed in Delhi for many years. When new hous­ing units in Delhi are made avail­able, prices in the sub­urbs would be affected,” said AK Jain, former Com­mis­sioner (Plan­ning), DDA. “In fact, most investors in Gur­gaon and Noida are from Delhi,” he said.

The DDA has failed to provide afford­able hous­ing in suf­fi­cient num­ber since its incep­tion more than 50 years ago. The demand for hous­ing was evid­ent when more than 12 lakh people applied for the 16,000 flats offered by DDA in its hous­ing scheme last year.

“It is a mis­nomer that Delhi has no land sup­ply,” said Ramesh Menon, dir­ector of Certes Realty Lim­ited, a real estate con­sultancy firm. “Land is being released for urb­an­isa­tion in Delhi and Zone L (near Dwarka) and Zone N (near Rohini), are the key areas. “Of the 70,000 hec­tares of land being avail­able, at least 25,000 hec­tares are meant for res­id­en­tial town­ships,” he said.

“While Gur­gaon and Noida have to cre­ate demand, Delhi is sit­ting on cap­tive demand,” Menon said.

There are oth­ers, how­ever, who believe that even with an increase in hous­ing sup­ply in Delhi, Gur­gaon and Noida wouldn’t be affected. “Gur­gaon and Noida see a dif­fer­ent kind of demand and cater to a dif­fer­ent demo­graphic. They have enough lat­ent demand, which would not be impacted by addi­tional sup­ply of hous­ing,” said Vin­eet K Singh, Busi­ness head, 99acres.com.

 

Govt to set up shel­ters, res­pite for home­less
Source: Hindus­tan Times
Dated: 28^th Nov. 2011

Thou­sands of labour­ers, who have been spend­ing their nights on foot­paths, will soon get relief from the bit­ing chill. The Delhi gov­ern­ment has decided to con­struct dorm­it­or­ies to provide accom­mod­a­tion to the des­ti­tutes dur­ing win­ters. A sig­ni­fic­ant part of the city’s home­less pop­u­la­tion com­prises labour­ers and migrants, who use tem­por­ary night shel­ters or take refuge on footpaths.

The Delhi State Indus­trial and Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment Cor­por­a­tion (DSIIDC) has chalked out a plan to con­struct transit accom­mod­a­tion for con­struc­tion work­ers and labourers.

A detailed pro­ject report, under which five-bedded dorm­it­or­ies will be con­struc­ted to accom­mod­ate 10,500 people and 10-bedded ones for 9,520 people, has already been pre­pared. The pro­posal has been sent to the urban devel­op­ment depart­ment for approval.

The city’s 64 per­man­ent night shel­ters are inad­equate to accom­mod­ate the home­less pop­u­la­tion, estim­ated to be more than one lakh.

“Most night shel­ters are used by con­struc­tion work­ers and labour­ers, who are unable to afford ren­ted accom­mod­a­tion. Land has already been allot­ted to the DSIIDC to con­struct houses for people belong­ing to the eco­nom­ic­ally weaker sec­tion of soci­ety,” said a senior Delhi gov­ern­ment official.

Land for con­struct­ing transit accom­mod­a­tion has been provided in the Kan­jhawala area. Accord­ing to a gov­ern­ment data, Delhi’s home­less pop­u­la­tion is estim­ated to be around one lakh. To ensure proper main­ten­ance of these dorm­it­or­ies, it has been pro­posed to give them on rent to con­struc­tion firms.

“It is a wel­come step. But transit shel­ters should be avail­able in cent­ral Delhi too. Pla­cing them in the bor­der areas, where there is hardly any live­li­hood option, is not a good idea,” said Indu Prakash Singh, tech­nical advisor of Indo-Global Social Ser­vice Soci­ety, which deals with urban poverty and homeless.

The five-bedded dorm­it­or­ies will be built at a cost of Rs 201 crore and the 10-bedded ones at Rs 160 crore. For the fund­ing, 50% of the cost will be fin­anced under the Rajiv Awas Yojna, 25% by the Delhi gov­ern­ment and 12.5% by the DSIIDC. “Money col­lec­ted under the labour wel­fare fund can be util­ised for this pur­pose,” he said.  Unlike night shel­ters, the dorm­it­or­ies will provide space to occu­pants to keep their belongings.

 

 

DISCOURAGING POLLUTION — Delhi to have Rs 3,100 cr man­u­fac­tur­ing hub
Source: Hindus­tan Times
Dated: 22^nd Nov. 2011

    
The Delhi State Indus­trial and Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment Cor­por­a­tion (DSIIDC) has chalked out a plan to make Delhi an advanced indus­trial state as far as the non-polluting man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor is concerned.

“We intend to gen­er­ate large num­ber of employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies in rural as well as urban areas in Delhi. The rural belt in Delhi will be developed in such a way to over­shadow the exist­ing indus­tri­ally and IT developed neigh­bour­hood,“ said Delhi Indus­tries Min­is­ter Ramakant Gos­wami while address­ing a press conference.

In order to encour­age non­pol­lut­ing small and medium indus­tries in Delhi, the DSIIDC is set­ting up a very large mul­ti­level man­u­fac­tur­ing hub in north­w­est Delhi, which will be loc­ated on an area of 150 acres.
The estate will be developed with an estim­ated cost of R3,100 crore at Rani Khera, Gos­wami said, adding that the con­struc­tion will start in nine months.

“The pro­ject site will be con­nec­ted with the Metro sta­tions.
It will cater to spe­cific needs of IT, media research, gems and busi­ness ser­vices,“ he said.

A new route to Gur­gaon
Source: Eco­nomic Times
Dated: 18^th Nov. 2011

Delhi-Gurgaon com­muters can expect a smoother ride in a few years’ time, with plan­ners pro­pos­ing a new 2.7 km road con­nect­ing the Mehrauli-Mahipalpur Road to the NH-8 junc­tion near Shiv Murti that would provide a third link to the Mil­len­nium City and also ease traffic to Dwarka.

The pro­posed 60– to 75-metre-wide track is expec­ted to be built under the ‘urban relief road’ concept intro­duced in Mas­ter Plan Delhi 2021 for provid­ing quick solu­tions to clear bot­tle­necks. Sources said the city’s trans­port infra­struc­ture author­ity has asked the Pub­lic Works Depart­ment to exam­ine a con­cep­tual con­nectiv­ity pro­posal presen­ted by archi­tect Sud­hir Vohra, in con­sulta­tion with NHAI and other agencies.

“It was felt there’s a need for a new relief road to decon­gest NH-8 and also to con­nect Dwarka sub-city through the Mehrauli-Mahipalpur Road, although this road does not fig­ure in the zonal plan of Zone-J ‚” said a PWD source. This 2.7km road being planned which will con­nect the Mehrauli-Mahipalpur Road to the NH-8 junc­tion near Shiv Murti, could coon see Delhi-Gurgaon com­muters heav­ing a sigh of relief.

Accord­ing to the pro­posal, the road will link Mehrauli-Mahipalpur Road to NH-8 at the Shiv Murti junc­tion, where an under­pass will also provide a con­nec­tion to the Dwarka Link Road. This will enable Dwarka com­muters to avoid the heav­ily con­ges­ted Rao Tula Ram Road and the air­port stretch. The road will largely pass through uncul­tiv­ated gov­ern­ment land and will be com­plete with ser­vice lanes and other street design fea­tures laid down by UTTIPEC.

The road will ease the flow of traffic at the three major bot­tle­necks that form on the Outer Ring Road — near RTR,near the air­port and on NH-8 . “As com­muters bound for Dwarka and Gur­gaon can take the new road, the outer Ring Road will become clearer for the air­port traffic ‚” said a source.This pro­posed stretch will be wide enough for trucks to pass and the dir­ect con­nec­tion to Dwarka will allow the Dwarka Link Road to act as a fast transit, as was the ori­ginal plan, a source said.

 

MCD sanc­tions first online build­ing plan
Source: PTI

New Delhi: In a sig­ni­fic­ant step towards e-governance, the the Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tion of Delhi (MCD) on Fri­day sanc­tioned its first build­ing plan applied online. With this, the MCD has become the the first local body in the coun­try to intro­duce the sys­tem of approv­ing build­ing plans online, MCD Com­mis­sioner K S Mehra said.

Launched on Novem­ber 1, the online scheme has become oper­a­tional with a build­ing in Vas­ant Vihar being the first to be sanc­tioned, he said, adding the facil­ity would soon be exten­ded to the zonal offices. The scheme was so far restric­ted to fresh pro­pos­als in respect to prop­er­ties meas­ur­ing 400 square yards and above.

Addi­tional Com­mis­sioner (Engin­eer­ing), Man­ish Gupta said the unique soft­ware scru­tin­ises the draw­ings as per the build­ing laws included in the Mas­ter Plan-2021.

“From Decem­ber 1 onwards, the facil­ity will be exten­ded to two zonal offices in south Delhi and Rohini and from Janu­ary 1 to other zones,” he said.

 

3 bus clusters to be launched by Nov 14
Source: Hindus­tan Times
Dated: 10^th Nov. 2011

The next cluster bus ser­vice — to bene­fit north and west Delhi com­muters — is all set to be func­tional by Novem­ber 14. The next ser­vice will include clusters 3, 4 and 5. The trans­port depart­ment will make func­tional a total of 300 new buses.“The next ser­vice will start oper­a­tions from Novem­ber 14 from the Kan­jhawala depot. A total of 400 buses will ply in the city under the cluster ser­vice by this year-end. This will take off load from the exist­ing buses. Another depot near Rajghat is also being pre­pared which will be used for the first cluster buses,” said Arvinder Singh, Delhi trans­port minister.

For cluster 3, 182 buses will ply on 29 routes; for cluster 4, there will be 148 buses on 20 routes; and in cluster 5, 120 buses will run on 20 routes. Clusters 3, 4 and 5 will be launched before cluster 2 as the depot in Kan­jhawala in north­w­est Delhi falls near the cluster routes.

The fate of the other bus clusters is still uncer­tain as no other depot is ready. About 17 clusters were to be launched in Delhi. So far, only one cluster in south Delhi is oper­a­tional. This cluster on which 100 buses ply was flagged off in May this year. The launch of the first cluster too had been delayed due to a lack of depot space.

The plan to divide all the 650 routes in the city into clusters and let a con­sor­tium of private investors oper­ate them was mooted a few years ago.

The pro­ject, how­ever, had got mired in vari­ous con­tro­ver­sies and been delayed sev­eral times.

Delhi Integ­rated Multi-Modal Transit Sys­tem (DIMTS) is the con­sult­ing com­pany that draf­ted the scheme for cor­por­at­isa­tion of private bus oper­a­tions and will super­vise cluster bus oper­a­tions on  behalf of the Delhi government.

Delhi’s 657 bus routes have been divided into 17 clusters. More than 4,400 buses would be run in these 17 clusters.

 

 

Will ‘coun­try’ homes get pop­u­lar after the circle rate hike?
Source: HT Estates
Dated: 5^th Nov. 2011

With the Delhi Gov­ern­ment increas­ing the circle rates from 15% to 250% to check black money deals, the focus may now black money deals, the focus may now shift to acquir­ing plots to build coun­try homes in the green belt land to be released in zones N and L under the new Mas­ter Plan (MPD) 2021.

Under the coun­try homes policy, cur­rently under con­sid­er­a­tion by the gov­ern­ment, there is a pro­posal to allow almost 7000 sq ft of con­struc­tion per acre of land. The last peri­pheral vil­lage of Delhi is ear­marked as the green belt wherein farm­houses and coun­try homes will be per­mit­ted.
Approx­im­ately 11000 hec­tares of land in Delhi are part of the green belt. This would be much lower than the price of builder floors in Category-A areas and would shift the mar­ket towards legit­im­ate con­struc­tion of farm­houses and coun­try homes.

Cur­rently, prices in areas such as Defence Colony, Greater Kailash, cost any­thing between R8 crore to R10 crore per dwell­ing unit of size 2000 sq ft. A 2.5 acre farm­house in the Chat­tarpur area could cost more than R30 crore.
“In the new zones N and L under MPD 2021, a farm­house of 2.5 acres, con­struc­ted as per the new norms, will cost almost one fourth the price in these areas,“ says Ramesh Menon of Certes Realty.

 

Increase in circle rates in Delhi might have a neg­li­gible impact on prop­erty prices, but regis­tra­tion will be an expens­ive affair, says Vandana Ram­nani
Source: HT Estates
Dated: 5^th Nov. 2011

There’s been yet another hike in circle rates in Delhi this week and it ranges from 15% to 250%. While the intent is to grow the government’s cof­fers, realty experts make a sur­pris­ing pre­dic­tion: Its impact on prop­erty prices will be marginal.

So, what has the circle rate increase been like? Category-A areas (such as Defence Colony) have seen the highest rate hikes ­ of as much as 250%. For cat­egor­ies B, C and D, areas such as Kalkaji, East of Kailash and Dwarka, the increase has been 100%. Category-C areas such as Kara­m­pura will see an increase of 25%. Rates have gone up 20% in Category-F areas such as Ashok Nagar Exten­sion, and in cat­egor­ies G and H, such as Aza­d­pur and Kan­jhawala, the increase is 15%. What this means is that nobody will be allowed to buy land or prop­erty in these areas below the rates specified.

The good news is that the move will not send prop­erty prices spiralling, and the impact will be felt mar­gin­ally at less than 1%.
Home­buy­ers will, how­ever, have to pay more for regis­tra­tion. Since the min­imum stamp duty on sale of prop­erty is cal­cu­lated basis the pre­vail­ing circle rate, an increase in circle rates will auto­mat­ic­ally push up the min­imum stamp duty liab­il­ity. This may have a neg­at­ive impact on buyer sen­ti­ment but only for the short-term. There’s also a like­li­hood of sellers try­ing to push prices up to make gains but that again depends on how will­ing a buyer is to shell out that kind of money.

“Regis­tra­tion of prop­erty will def­in­itely become a costly affair while prop­erty valu­ation will move closer to fair or mar­ket value,“ says Sachin Sandhir, man­aging dir­ector and coun­try head of the Royal Insti­tu­tion of Chartered Sur­vey­ors (RICS), India.

For genu­ine buy­ers, the increase in circle rates is a pos­it­ive move because it will help them avail higher loans from banks as banks dis­burse loans on the basis of sale deeds that take into account the circle rate while get­ting an estim­ate of prop­erty prices. Buy­ers can avail up to 80 – 85% of the total circle rate as home loans are exten­ded only on the basis of the white com­pon­ent of the amount involved in the transaction.

Circle rates usu­ally have a dif­fer­en­tial impact on primary and sec­ond­ary res­id­en­tial deals. The primary mar­ket deals that are usu­ally dir­ect deals between build­ers and buy­ers are primar­ily all-white deals and the increase in circle rates is unlikely to have any dir­ect impact on the volumes and sales of such trans­ac­tions.
How­ever, in case of deals in the sec­ond­ary mar­ket, which are second-hand buys and where the white com­pon­ent is pro­por­tion­ately lower in the total trans­ac­tion value, the cost of res­id­en­tial units may increase mar­gin­ally for the buyer.

 

Supreme Court realty order will cut down stamp duty eva­sions
Source: Times of india
Dated: 14^th Oct. 2011

GURGAON: The Supreme Court order bar­ring all prop­erty sale trans­ac­tions through gen­eral power of attor­ney (GPA) is being seen as a pos­it­ive move towards curb­ing pil­fer­age in stamp duty.

It is also likely to prove a major deterrent for those who park their “black money” in “benami” prop­er­ties and con­trol property-related frauds. Hary­ana has a rev­enue policy which does not allow regis­tra­tion of GPA in the names of indi­vidu­als other than blood rela­tions. How­ever, the loop­hole still remains that GPAs can be registered for a min­imum pay­ment of Rs 100 in other states.

Selling prop­erty on GPA affects the exchequer since the sellers and buy­ers evade pay­ing stamp duty valid on registry, said Gur­gaon deputy com­mis­sioner P C Meena. “Though we have not received the order, it will def­in­itely help in cut­ting down on incid­ences of stamp duty eva­sions,” he added.

Meena said that GPAs were help­ful in cases where the owner might be a fre­quent trav­el­ler or liv­ing abroad or in any other part of the coun­try to take care of or make sale and pur­chase of his immov­able property.

Joint police com­mis­sioner Aloke Mit­tal, who heads the eco­nomic offences wing (EOW), said, “We have been receiv­ing a high per­cent­age of com­plaints related to prop­erty frauds car­ried out on GPAs. This is not a secure doc­u­ment and does not val­id­ate own­er­ship.” He added that prop­erty frauds can be car­ried out based on GPAs.

Said Ramesh Menon, dir­ector, CERTES Realty Ltd, “With the Land Acquis­i­tion (Reset­tle­ment and Rehab­ili­t­aion) Bill under con­sid­er­a­tion, this judg­ment would accord clar­ity and reduce lit­ig­a­tion when the gov­ern­ment has to acquire land par­cels for devel­op­ment, and the com­pens­a­tion would be delivered to the right own­ers of land. It also lends guid­ance to the long­stand­ing demand for par­ity and ration­al­iz­a­tion of stamp duties across the country.”

Accord­ing to Ruchika Bhard­waj, lead ana­lyst of a portal Delhifarms.com, in the short term, the trans­ac­tion volumes are likely to fall, till the clar­ity about this judg­ment reaches the tehsils/end buyers.

“Also, the prices are likely to cor­rect down­wards in the many unau­thor­ized colon­ies and legit­im­ate areas like Lal Dora, urban vil­lages have to start announ­cing their cor­rect valuations.”

How­ever, this might pose a prob­lem for buyers/ sellers of inde­pend­ent floors built on plot sizes less than 180 sq yards as the state policy does not allow the regis­tra­tion of sale/conveyance deeds of such sales. These prop­er­ties con­tinue to be sold on GPAs, etc. Other than these, plots in unreg­u­lar­ized colon­ies are sold on GPAs.

How­ever, since bank loans are unavail­able on such prop­er­ties, they have a much lower value com­pared to the mar­ket prices. 

Click here to down­load SC order

 

DDA plans modi­fic­a­tions in Delhi mas­ter­plan
Source: Indian Express
Dated: 12^th Oct. 2011

In order to revisit spe­cific pro­vi­sions of the Mas­ter Plan Delhi (MPD)-2021 and facil­it­ate modi­fic­a­tions, which could not be fore­seen dur­ing the for­mu­la­tion of the plan, the Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity (DDA), has invited pub­lic sug­ges­tions for mid-term review of MPD-2021. Accord­ing to the land agency, this review is being under­taken to provide real­istic cor­rec­tions and modi­fic­a­tions in the Mas­ter Plan policies, norms and the imple­ment­a­tion pro­ced­ure to suit the chan­ging needs of the society.

“The notice invit­ing pub­lic sug­ges­tions was pub­lished on Octo­ber 4. The Mas­ter Plan has been planned with a vis­ion and policy guidelines for the per­spect­ive period of twenty years. It emphas­ises on pub­lic par­ti­cip­a­tion and peri­odic or mid-term review. The review would facil­it­ate modi­fic­a­tions and revis­it­ing of spe­cific pro­vi­sions of the plan that could not be fore­seen or anti­cip­ated dur­ing the plan for­mu­la­tion,” said DDA spokes­per­son, Neemo Dhar. A period of 45 days has been provided to people to come for­ward with sug­ges­tions or views on spe­cific aspects of the plan. Accord­ing to the DDA, how­ever, not too many people have come for­ward till date.

“The L-G also took a review meet­ing of the Mas­ter Plan. Sev­eral experts also atten­ded these meet­ings to give their views on the kind of amend­ments that need to be made in the plan. Com­mit­tees will be formed to look into the feas­ib­il­ity of these sug­ges­tions before they are included or rejec­ted,” said a DDA official.

The Mas­ter Plan Delhi-2021 came into force in Feb­ru­ary 2007, and many of the plans under the MPD like con­struc­tion of the urban exten­sion roads, for­mu­la­tion of land policy are still being worked out etc. “It was made for a period of 20 years and very broad guidelines were set under it. Changes will be made to it if felt neces­sary,” added the official.

Farm­house policy: Dis­cus­sion deferred till Novem­ber 3
Source: Times of India
Dated: 17^th Sep. 2011

NEW DELHI: The farm­house policy was to be taken up for dis­cus­sion in the Delhi Devel­op­ment Author­ity meet­ing on Fri­day. How­ever, the mat­ter was deferred until the next meet­ing on Novem­ber 3 as Delhi gov­ern­ment wanted more time to sub­mit its views on the pro­posed amendments.

The non-official mem­bers were against the reg­u­lar­iz­a­tion of nearly 2,400 farm­houses built bey­ond per­miss­ible area in places like Mehrauli, Chhatarpur, Neb Sarai, Ber Sarai and Satabari. These mem­bers said they were pre­pared to vote against the policy though it was deferred even before any discussion.

“The farm­house policy mat­ter has been deferred till the next meet­ing which is sched­uled on Novem­ber 3,” said Subhash Chopra, MLA and non-official mem­ber of DDA. Another non-official mem­ber, MCD coun­cilor Rajesh Gehlot, added, “The pro­posed amend­ments in the policy like reg­u­lar­iz­a­tion, con­struc­tion of coun­try homes and com­mer­cial estab­lish­ments will need an amend­ment in the mas­ter plan too.”

 

Land acquis­i­tion bill tabled in Par­lia­ment on 7^th Septem­ber 2011

 

Land Acquis­i­tion Bill: Will new land law hurt realty sector?

Source: Eco­nomic Times
Dated: 17^th Sep. 2011

The new land policy cleared by Union Cab­inet could lead to a big gap between demand and sup­ply. Pay­ing com­pens­a­tion four times the highest amount of registered sale in the area in last three years is only going to increase the cost of set­ting up the indus­trial estab­lish­ments, infra­struc­tural pro­jects and town­ships, believe real estate firms.

If the bill is passed in its pro­posed form, it will badly hurt the realty sec­tor and urban devel­op­ment, apart from, prac­tic­ally, end­ing the dreams of afford­able hous­ing for the middle class segment.

The new bill, meant to replace the 117-year-old Land Acquis­i­tion Bill of 1894, which has been intro­duced in Par­lia­ment, will mean private com­pan­ies will have to give relief and rehab­il­it­a­tion pack­ages to dis­placed people even if they dir­ectly buy land from landown­ers, for all trans­ac­tions over 50 acres in urban areas and 100 acres in rural areas.

There is still con­fu­sion and dis­sat­is­fac­tion over accept­ance of new land bill by real estate firms. The Con­fed­er­a­tion of Indian Industry (CII) has already expressed con­cern over the appre­ci­ation value set in the Land Acquis­i­tion Bill and said that the pro­posed value would make land cost eco­nom­ic­ally unvi­able for industries.

Navin M Raheja, the chair­man and man­aging dir­ector of the Raheja Group and chair­man of Assocham , says: “Acquis­i­tion of land with con­sent of landown­ers is a wel­come step. But pay­ing com­pens­a­tion four times the best of the registered sale in the area in last three years is only going to increase the cost of set­ting up the indus­trial estab­lish­ments, infra­struc­tural pro­jects and town­ships. This could also lead to a big gap between demand and sup­ply. There must be an open debate of all the stake­hold­ers like the industry , the gov­ern­ment, the landown­ers and also the media to device a path which is trans­par­ent and pragmatic.”

“States should be required to put up land for devel­op­ment on e-portals (land offers for devel­op­ment pro­jects) through a web­site or any other mech­an­ism access­ible by every­one, where the landown­ers can col­lect­ively offer their land for sale with the price deman­ded, so that the industry and the gov­ern­ment are free to nego­ti­ate with farm­ers,” Raheja said.

Pankaj Bajaj, the pres­id­ent of CREDAI (NCR) opposed the pro­posed relief and rehab­il­it­a­tion pack­age, and said: “The new bill will badly hurt the realty sec­tor and urban devel­op­ment, apart from prac­tic­ally end­ing the dreams of afford­able hous­ing for middle-class seg­ments, as pro­vi­sion of the Land Acquis­i­tion Bill make homes for the com­mon man much more costly. Relief and rehab­il­it­a­tion pack­age for private com­pan­ies should be done away with. Acquir­ing private pock­ets in a hous­ing pro­ject should be defined as pub­lic purposes.”

Rakesh Yadav, the man­aging dir­ector of the Antriksh Group, says: “Apart from real estate firms, the cost of pro­duc­tion of indus­trial units will also go up due to high cap­ital cost of set­ting up factor­ies. The fin­an­cing of these activ­it­ies will be tough, too, as there are no norms for fin­an­cing the land cost.”

Mohit Arora, the dir­ector of Super­tech Group, says: “In most cit­ies like the met­ros, Tier 2 & 3 cit­ies, government-acquired land for infra­struc­ture and indus­trial devel­op­ment, the bur­den and cost of social and indus­trial devel­op­ment will be con­sid­er­ably enhanced through this bill. As a res­ult , the infra­struc­ture and indus­trial devel­op­ment will become slow and expensive.”

Prasant Solomon, joint man­aging dir­ector of Chin­tels India Ltd (which has the largest land bank of 400 acres in Dwarka-Gurgaon Express­way), says: “This policy will also adversely affect the real estate devel­op­ment as addi­tional bur­den of land cost will make hous­ing expens­ive. In fact, land in the open mar­ket too would become expensive.”

Impact of new bill

As far as the farm­ers are con­cerned , it is the best time for them to encash upon this oppor­tun­ity, espe­cially in the NCR’s Noida-Greater Noida, Gur­gaon, and Faridabad areas. Hav­ing gained great vis­ib­il­ity after the cur­rent land row, the farm­ers of Noida and Greater Noida are try­ing to encash in upon the government’s pro-farmer mood and obtain the best pos­sible com­pens­a­tion for their lands, which have been acquired by the author­it­ies concerned .

After the clear­ance from the Union Cab­inet, farm­ers every­where are hold­ing pan­chay­ats (village-level meet­ings) and demand­ing com­pens­a­tion as per the new land bill. “New bill recom­mends enhanced com­pens­a­tion, four times its mar­ket value in rural areas and two times its mar­ket value in urban areas the exist­ing com­pens­a­tion pack­age. It also recom­mends an attract­ive rehab­il­it­a­tion and reset­tle­ment pack­age for dis­placed people. Why then should we not take advant­age of the new law,” said Vilram Kas­ana, a farmer leader.

Ram Gopal Gupta, a former senior city plan­ner and policy maker at DDA, says: “To deal with land-related issues, the gov­ern­ment is in the pro­cess of for­mu­lat­ing a new law. Land acquis­i­tion and rehab­il­it­a­tion and reset­tle­ment (R & R) need to be seen neces­sar­ily as the two sides of the same coin. A R & R must always, in each instance, neces­sar­ily fol­low land acquis­i­tion. Not com­bin­ing the two, R & R and land acquis­i­tion within one law, risks neg­lect of R & R. This has indeed been the exper­i­ence thus far.”

Land policy in the NCR

Under the new policy (being imple­men­ted in UP and Hary­ana), the author­it­ies con­cerned like Noida-Greater Noida and Yamuna Express­way Indus­trial Devel­op­ment Author­ity (YEIDA or YEA) in Noida-Greater Noida, Hary­ana Urban Devel­op­ment Author­ity (HUDA) in Gur­gaon and Faridabad have to face extra burden .

In these cir­cum­stances, the devel­op­ment author­it­ies will be forced to hike the exist­ing rates. It is expec­ted that the dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion is also plan­ning to revise the circle rates (as pro­jec­ted 25 – 30 % hike in the exist­ing rate). Accord­ing to the new acquis­i­tion policy, which is being imple­men­ted in UP and Hary­ana, both are already facing an extra burden .

Anil Sharma, the chair­man and man­aging dir­ector of the Amrap­ali Group and vice-president of CREDAI (NCR), says: “The new land acquis­i­tion policy of both the neigh­bour­ing states (UP and Hary­ana) has already been framed to safe­guard the interests of farm­ers. This is a his­toric moment and effort should be made to get it imple­men­ted at the national level, instead of the pro­posed new land acquis­i­tion bill (cleared by the Union Cabinet).”

Land acquis­i­tion policy of Haryana

Build­ers and developers can dir­ectly pur­chase land from farm­ers . For this, build­ers and developers have to get a no-objection cer­ti­fic­ate (NoC) from HUDA. Like in UP, the Hary­ana state gov­ern­ment , too, will not inter­fere in the deals being nego­ti­ated with the own­ers of the land on the price.

The landown­ers will now be paid an annu­ity of Rs 21,000 per acre per year, which will be increased at the rate of Rs 750 every year for a period of 33 years. The annu­ity for acquis­i­tion of land for private com­pan­ies will be Rs 42,000 per acre per annum with an annual increase at the rate of Rs 1,500 every year.

Regard­ing allot­ment of res­id­en­tial plots against acquis­i­tion of built-up res­id­en­tial struc­tures, where any gov­ern­ment depart­ment resor­ted to acquis­i­tion of self-occupied res­id­en­tial houses for unavoid­able reas­ons, the own­ers would be entitled to assured allot­ment of res­id­en­tial plots.

In the new policy of Hary­ana, there is also a pro­vi­sion for bene­fits of min­imum floor rate (MFR). For this, the state has now been divided into five zonal brack­ets. Under the new policy, for land situ­ated within the noti­fied lim­its of Gur­gaon Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tion, the new MFR has been fixed at Rs 72 lakh per acre, includ­ing Rs 8 lakh as no-litigation incent­ive. In this way, a farmer in Gur­gaon will now get up to Rs 72 lakh for an acre of his land.

For land situ­ated within the noti­fied lim­its of Faridabad and Panch­kula Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tions , areas form­ing part of the devel­op­ment plans of Gurgaon-Manesar Urban Com­plex (exclud­ing the areas fall­ing within the lim­its of Gur­gaon Muni­cipal Cor­por­a­tion), Sohna, and Sonipat-Kundli Urban Com­plex, the MFR has been fixed at Rs 54 lakh per acre, includ­ing Rs 6 lakh as no-litigation incentive.

High­lights of the new Union land bill

The states are free to frame their own laws and if they so desire, are free to improve upon the pro­vi­sions stip­u­lated under the pro­posed bill. It allows flex­ib­il­ity to the state gov­ern­ment on whether or not to inter­vene on behalf of private play­ers in land acquisitions .

The urgency clause can only be invoked in national defenses and for secur­ity pur­poses; R&R needs in the event of emer­gen­cies or nat­ural calam­it­ies. Now, farm­ers will get only four times the mar­ket price in the rural areas while in urban areas it will be double the mar­ket price.

In any case, the R&R pack­age will be applic­able only when the private parties acquire 100 acres or more land in the rural areas and 50 acres or more in urban areas.

The prom­ised R&R for those sub­sist­ing on the acquired land will now be applic­able only to those who have been eking out a live­li­hood for at least three years on that piece of land. Earlier, all those sus­tain­ing them­selves on the acquired piece of land were made eli­gible for compensation.

While the pur­pose of acquis­i­tion can’t be changed, the bill, how­ever, now allows trans­fer of land with the approval of the state gov­ern­ment; if the trans­fer is made without any devel­op­ment of the land, the farm­ers will have to be paid 20% of the appre­ci­ated value.

The bill spe­cifies timelines for the pay­ment of com­pens­a­tion. The price of land has to be paid within three months of the award, and the other mon­et­ary com­pens­a­tions within six months and the infra­struc­ture enti­tle­ments under the R&R pack­age within 18 months. Pen­al­ties will be levied on violation.