M A I N   N E W S

Mega Projects
Norms bent to favour private builders
Raveen Thukral
Tribune News Service

Glaring contrast Multi Media-cum-Film City Project allotted to M/S Parsvanath at Rs 190 crore; value of the land otherwise was about Rs 500 crore Land allotted for construction of luxury apartments at Rs 308 per sq yard while that for single room tenements for economically weaker sections at Rs 3,900 per sq yard

Chandigarh, December 31
The recent statement by the Union Minister of State for Finance, Pawan Kumar Bansal, seeking a review of UT Administrator Gen (Retd) SF Rodrigues’s Mega Projects on the ground that it was “heavily tilted in favour of private players” seems justified, as land had been literally given to some developers at peanuts.

Documents available with The Tribune clearly show that odds were heavily loaded to favour certain selected private developers, who acquired land for totally commercial projects at prices even lesser than the cost of construction of a single room tenement for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS).

In September 2004, the UT administration had allotted land measuring 14,477.812 sq yards to the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) at the rate of Rs 3,900 per sq yard for construction of one room EWS tenements in Sector 38. In contrast, M/S DLF Infocity Developers Ltd was allotted 12.5 acres of land in August 2007 at the rate of Rs 31.54 lakh per acre. This works out to be about Rs 3,739 per sq yard, which is Rs 161 per sq yard lesser than that of the single room EWS tenements.

Interestingly, the administration, which otherwise claims itself to be pro-poor, allotted land for construction of dwelling units under the Dr Ambedkar Awas Yojana in Sector 56 to the CHB also at Rs 3,900 per sq yard. Land on similar rates was allotted for the construction of EWS, LIG, MIG and HIG flats in Sector 63.

However, when it came to construction of luxury apartments, the administration, in its own wisdom, allotted 123.79 acres of land to the CHB at a lump-sum cost of Rs 18.5 crore, which works out to be Rs 308 per sq yard. The difference in prices of land to CHB for EWS houses and luxury apartments is around Rs 3,592 per sq yard.

The administration has tried to justify this deal on the plea that the land allotted to CHB was given to M/S Parsvanath for construction of the Pride Asia luxury apartment project under a joint venture scheme, at Rs 13,700 per sq yard. This amount may appear impressive, but when you compare it to the rates for conversion of industrial plots to commercial ones within Chandigarh, the private player is a winner all the way.

In contrast to M/s Parsvanath land deal at the rate of Rs 13,700 per sq yard, an industrialist, who actually owned land in the city, had to shell out Rs 20,000 per sq yard for converting his site to a commercial one. These rates now have been hiked to Rs 29,713 per sq yard.

Now coming to the Medicity project, the UT Adviser, Pradeep Mehra, had already raised objections to the administration’s move of fixing the upfront project fee at Rs 203.7 crore for the 45 acres of prime land near the IT Park. He had also objected to the PPP model, which, as Bansal says, was loaded in favour of the private player and that the land should had been valued at least at Rs 2,000 crore.

The adviser has also taken the administration head-on on the Multi Media-cum-Film City Project and disputed the benchmark figure of Rs 175 crore by terming it “grossly undervalued”. He has valued the land at Rs 500 crore, whereas M/S Parsvanath, who are now withdrawing from the project, got it for about Rs 190 crore. They have already paid Rs 47.75 crore, for which they are now seeking a refund.