E-Paper
Poor response to land pooling scheme: GMADA offers more compensation
Proposes to offer commercial plot of 200 square yards instead of 121 square yards
In view of the tepid response from land owners for its land pooling scheme, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) has decided to increase the compensation for land acquisition.
Instead of 121 square yards, the authority plans to offer the land owners a commercial plot of 200 square yards.
The existing land pooling policy allows awarding housing and commercial sites in lieu of farmers’ land, and is applicable for all new townships under the ambit of GMADA.
For instance, in case of acquisition of eight kanals, the land owner has two options: To either choose a 1,000 square yard developed residential site and a 121 square yard developed SCO site or a 500 square yard residential site with a 300 square yard SCO site.
Willing to increase the commercial site’s land size, GMADA has sent a file to the Punjab cabinet for its final approval, which is expected in the first week of June.
GMADA additional chief administrator Rajesh Dhiman said with changes in the scheme, we hope more land owners will opt for it. “The file has been sent to the Punjab cabinet for approval, which we expect by next month,” he said.
MORE TIME NEEDED FOR ECO CITY-3
Also, due to the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, GMADA has again proposed to extend the time limit to acquire land for its Urban Estate Eco City-3 project at New Chandigarh, Mullanpur.
Earlier, after facing fund crunch and poor response from landowners, GMADA had extended the acquisition’s last date from March 12 to April 1.
GMADA estate office Sanjeev Kumar said, “We have written to the legal department to take their view on whether the process can be extended as it has been done thrice already.”
The project will have residential, commercial and institutional properties. Even as 118 land owners out of 450 in the area have opted for the scheme, GMADA is working on acquiring 320 acres in the six villages of Rajgarh, Takipur, Kartarpur, Kansala and Hoshiarpur.
In November last year, GMADA had approved the rates of acquisition of 320 acres in the five villages, with compensation for farmers fixed between Rs 1.8 crore and Rs 2.4 crore per acre, depending on the village.
The authority has also initiated acquisition of 737 acres for its other township, Aerotropolis, spread over 5,400 acres, an expansion of GMADA’s Aerocity near Chandigarh International Airport. Other townships under GMADA are Knowledge City and IT City, also close to the airport, and Eco City-1 and 2, Edu City and Medi City, all in New Chandigarh.
