Real estate developers in Mumbai are worried over the fate of Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda. They feel that Gowda was instrumental in the three-member N P Singh Committee recommending a doubling of floor area under the Urban Land Ceiling Act 1976. The act envisages building of free housing for the poor by the deployment of land at zero cost. The floor ceiling for commercial buildings in A-class metros has been fixed at 500 square feet.
It is now very difficult to guarantee a federal approach to the vexed problem. Gowdas advantage was that he had handled Urban Land Ceiling issues effectively when he was the chief minister of Karnataka, a developer said.
Scrapping the act or doubling of land ceiling would have resulted in huge tracts being freed for development in Mumbai. Nearly eight square miles in the central suburbs of Mumbai sandwiched between Vikhroli and Thane can be developed if the Urban Land Ceiling Act is scrapped, said Abis Rizvi, director, Rizvi Builders.
Conservative estimates reveal that the land which is freed between Vikhroli and Thane for development would be worth around Rs 15,000 crore. There is no reason for any government to continue with this act as in cities like Mumbai, where the housing problem is more acute, most of the urban land is already developed, Rizvi said.
Even according to the urban development ministry figures, from a total of 2.12 lakh hectares identified by the ministry to be in excess of the Urban Land Ceiling Act since 1976, only around six per cent is now under the control of the government.
As far as Mumbai is concerned, there has been negligible land acquisitions under this Act within the past few years as there are massive loopholes in the Act ... moreover time-consuming litigations take their toll, Rizvi said.
Sandeep Raheja, director, K Raheja group, would ideally like the act to be scrapped failing which attempts should be to ensure that it is made reasonable.
Even if the next prime minister decides to scrap this act, there would be no impact in cities like Mumbai as all the free land belonging to the government in suburbs like Malad and Kandivali have already been encroached by squatters, a builder said.
A sector source said encroachments in Mumbai alone was in excess of 50 lakh square metres of prime land valued around Rs 5,000 crore.
It is difficult to prophesise on how the next prime minister thinks but any government must re-think on this act as no state has the resources or the manpower to patrol its own land, Raheja said.
However, others were not that moderate in their views. No state government will scrap this act as it ensures chief ministers have access to huge slush funds after passing dubious sale of land to their favourites, said the developer.
