PUDA puts 8.21 acres on the block for 5th time

Kuldip Bhatia 
Ludhiana, May 29

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A prime chunk of land measuring 8.21 acre, located right in front of Mini-Secretariat on Ferozepur Road (NH 95), is once again up for grab at a slashed price of Rs 333.79 crore. 

The Punjab Urban Development and Planning Authority (PUDA), having been unsuccessful for at least five times in the past to find a buyer for this land, has again put it on the block through e-auction, which will commence on June 1. The online bids for the site, along with many other commercial sites and residential plots, will close on June 10.

The land belonging to the Canal and Irrigation Department, which was vacated a couple of years ago under the optimum use of vacant government land (OUVGL) scheme of the state government, was handed over to PUDA for commercial exploitation. 

The site was put on sale through open public auction at least three times between 2014 and 2015 at a reserve price of Rs 1.05 lakh per square yard with total floor price at Rs 415.71 crore.

However, finding no buyer for the land with permitted use of commercial and group housing for three times, in accordance with the standing government policy, its reserve price was reduced by 20 per cent. 

The land was twice put on the block at Rs 84,000 per square yard with total slashed price at Rs 333.70 crore in November 2015 and December 2018 without any success.

The reduction in reserve price of the prime chunk of land by the PUDA authorities after three unsuccessful attempts to sell it had come under sharp criticism by some realtors in the city. They alleged that PUDA officials were acting under pressure from a senior functionary (read a cabinet minister) in the then SAD-BJP government, who had his eyes on the prime land. 

“Now that the land is being offered for sale at a slashed reserve price for the fifth time, will the government agency (PUDA) again cut its price by another 20 per cent if it remains unsold,” a city-based property developer said while adding that, “In such a case, the site will find a buyer in someone ‘high and mighty’, and that too at a throw-away price.”