Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) on Wednesday, August 10, said the property prices would surge if the draft Land Acquisition Bill proposed by the Rural Development Ministry came into force.
CREDAI Chairman Pradeep Jain said, “The draft Bill proposed by the Government in the name of urbanisation is going to make the property prices go up by over 100%. If this Bill becomes an Act then it will be tough for the developers to build townships. Not just this, the developer will have to transfer the cost burden to the end consumer. Thus, we feel that the developers should be kept out of the ambit of the Bill and it should be applicable only to the Government bodies.”
Explaining the relevant clauses, he pointed out that the ones related to rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) for private land assembly should be done away with since developers frequently assemble such lands on the outskirts of big cities without displacing people. He also said that the developer does the deal at a fair market, which includes the R&R costs.
Expressing similar sentiments, CREDAI President Lalit Kumar Jain said, “The blanket ban on multi-crop is impractical, especially in the cities located on the plains of the Ganga. Any land available in these cities is multi-crop and cultivable and since these cities have highest trends of urbanisation and population growth, from where will these people find shelter? Thus, such bans are completely impractical and should be removed from the Bill.”
Another proposal which the developers are opposing is the demand to give one acre land to each displaced scheduled tribe family in a 100 acre project. They say such clauses are impossible to meet. If any developer has to follow this proposal then he will have to acquire another 150 acres of land just to accommodate the 150 families which were displaced in the acquisition of 100 acre. This will not just push up the costs but also make it difficult for the government to identify land parcels which are of 250 acre — 100 acre for the development and another 150 acre for the rehabilitation.
