Noida real estate woes: Yogi Adityanath constitutes GoM

In backdrop of perpetual problems faced by real estate players, land owners and property buyers in Noida, the Yogi Adityanath government has constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to study the various issues pertaining to the real estate sector in the National Capital Region (NCR) and submit a detailed report.

The GoM is headed by Uttar Pradesh urban development and parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Khanna and also comprises two other ministers - state industrial development minister Satish Mahana and state sugarcane development minister Suresh Rana, who is also the UP minister of state for industrial development.

Real estate companies and land owners have at times been at crosshair with regards to the real estate projects in the Gautam Budh Nagar district, which spans Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway, over several issues.

After land parcels were notified in Noida, about 200 villages in the region are beyond the purview of the respective panchayats. Therefore, the development works in these areas are neither being carried out by village panchayats nor Noida.

The builders also face problems during sale of flats owing to irritants such as troubles in getting clearances, registration of property, sales deed etc.

In this regard, the GoM would visit the NCR on August 30 and 31 and hold confabulations with all stakeholders and later submit a detailed report to the CM for remedial actions.

Earlier, continuing with its purported agenda of purging cash rich development authorities in UP, especially Noida and Greater Noida, of corruption, the Yogi government had decided to merge the service cadre of nine such entities into a centralised body.

The state cabinet has already approved the UP Industrial Area Development (Amendment) Bill 2017, which would integrate these development authorities and subject the new cadre thus formed to transfers within these bodies.

The state government had also recommended CAG audit of Noida and Greater Noida, while CBI is already probing cases of some shady transactions in these development authorities.

The state cabinet meeting chaired by Yogi earlier this month had approved a proposal, under which UP Industrial Development Authority Centralised Service cadre would be instituted by amending the UP Industrial Area Development Act 1976. This Act was based on UP Urban Planning and Development Act 1973.

The nine industrial development authorities are UP State Industrial Development Authority (UPSIDC), Noida, Greater Noida, Gorakhpur Industrial Development Authority (GIDA),  Satharia Industrial Development Authority (SIDA), Lucknow Industrial Development Authority (LIDA), Yamuna Expressway Authority, UP Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) and UP State Industrial Development Authority (UPSIDA).

While, there have been several allegations of last scale corruption in the land deals of Noida and Greater Noida spanning the two previous SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) regimes, the Yadav Singh case continues to make headlines for kickbacks in contravention of rules.