Strongly opposing the Resettlement & Rehabilitation (R&R) burden on private builders, Pankaj Bajaj, President, CREDAI NCR has said that this will hurt the realty sector and urban development, apart from practically ending the dream of affordable housing, as the provisions of the Land Acquisition Bill will make homes for the common man much more costly.
“R&R for private companies should be done away with,” he said, adding that the developers frequently acquire land on the outskirts of big cities without displacing anybody. The landowners willingly sell their land at a price, which is usually many times higher than the economic value of the mere agricultural land.
“All R&R benefits which are mandated in the proposed Bill are already priced in the free market value at which these transactions take place,” Bajaj said. If the Government must impose R&R obligations on the private sector, the land should be at least 1,000 acres, he said.
He also criticized the provision of blanket ban on the acquisition of multi-cropped land as “impractical, especially in the cities of the Gangetic plains.” Such a ban will only result in the growth of unauthorized colonies and slums.
Land acquisition by Government is essential because some landowners refuse to sell it for speculative reasons, even as most people around find merit in selling their land. Therefore, Bajaj said, State Governments must allow acquisition of land for development purposes. “The Bill should allow such acquisitions after the 70 per cent threshold.”In R&R benefits, the stipulation regarding giving 20 per cent of the developed land given back to landowner is again unreasonable, Bajaj said.
“If these provisions are accepted, the biggest sufferer would not be developers-who would shift to luxury housing-but the aam aadmi. The strong trend of urban growth in the country cannot be contained. In the absence of availability of land organized developers will have no choice but to do small luxury housing projects while large tracts of lands on the outskirts of cities will turn into unauthoised settlements, as in the case of Delhi where artificial restrictions on housing supply have resulted in more than 1500 unauthorised colonies,” Bajaj said.
A setback to the realty sector will also mean a big blow to employment generation, as it is one of the major job creators.
