Owners demand 90 per cent of surplus urban land under Act

MUMBAI, JUNE 17: A Cabinet sub-committee headed by State Housing minister Rohidas Patil has submitted its report on amendments proposed to...

MUMBAI, JUNE 17: A Cabinet sub-committee headed by State Housing minister Rohidas Patil has submitted its report on amendments proposed to the Urban Land Ceiling amp; Regulation Act ULCRA to Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshkmukh today. The report has skirted the issue of the central ordinance scrapping the ULCRA, by proposing that only 20 per cent of excess vacant land owned by private land owners be taken over by State and that remaining be retained by them.

This is the first time that the Government of Maharashtra has taken an official stance that it is not willing to scrap ULCRA on the lines of the central ordinance.

Sources said that land owners have protested against this move and suggested that only 10 per cent of the land be allowed to be taken over by State, leaving 90 per cent to them.

However, the CM has not accorded official sanction to this move which will be debated within all political parties before it is presented to State Cabinet for final ordinance implementing the amendment.

Even before the committee had presented its report, land owners, read prominent builders in the city since they own huge chunk of land in the city, had objected to this proposition. Ironically, several other states 8211; Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana 8211; have implemented the central ordinance on ULCRA whereby the state is expected to take over the surplus vacant land in urban areas.

Though prime idea of ULC was to avail housing stock to the poor, none of the objectives could be achieved by this scheme, repealed by Ram Jethmalani last year. Meanwhile, experts argue that this is subject to severe debates as Union Government has notified in its repeal Act, 1999, that states have to follow strict guidelines for achieving social objectives while amending the Act at state-level.

quot;An interesting fact in the plan is that though much noise has been made regarding the implications of the Act, the user industry has never been involved in the discussion. This is certainly a Catch 22 situation as the government is never expected to offer housing for the poor by taking over this surplus land which ultimately lands up with builders. So why not avoid taking over and give it away directly,quot; opined an activist.

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The sub-committee was headed by Patil and included Niranjan Hiranandani, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Ravindra Mane and Chandrashekhar Prabhu.

As per 1971 census, the declared surplus land was 1,372 sq km. A senior High Court advocate asks, quot;It has to be seen how much land will be available under ULCRA now. Let8217;s see how the government is going to take over the land where builders have taken over and raised skyscrapers, though it is literally a sell-out exercise like the sale of mill lands?quot;