Now, Punjab Govt eyes income from 8 housing development authorities

The cash-starved Punjab Government is now eyeing a permanent source of income from the eight housing development authorities governed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

To facilitate the regular flow of funds, the government is learnt to be carrying out an exercise to amend the Punjab Regional Town Planning and Development (PRTPD) Act, 1995, enabling a percentage of the sale proceeds from auction of properties or other income to be deposited with the state government.

Sources said the amendment would be made under Section 49 of the PRTPD Act dealing with funds of the authorities. The amendment would facilitate the transfer of revenue earned by the authorities from the disposal of land, buildings and other movable or immovable properties.

AAP looting state assets: Bajwa

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Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa on Friday accused CM Bhagwant Mann and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal of resorting to selling off the state’s assets to cover up their failures

"The desperate move by the Punjab Government to identify and sell or lease its own land is the ultimate proof that it has no vision to build economy of Punjab, whose debt burden will cross Rs 5 lakh crore by 2027," he said.

Recently, the state government had amended the PRTPD Act, appointing the Chief Secretary as the Chairman of the regional development authorities in place of the Chief Minister. This would be the second amendment to the Act.

Since the assent to the Act had been granted by the President on May 24, 1995, any amendments to the Act have to be approved by the President. “Any decision taken by way of the amendments could prove to be counter-productive,” said officials.

The state government has already asked for an inventory (properties to be auctioned) of all the housing development authorities, including residential, commercial and industrial sites. All eight authorities at Mohali, Amritsar, Bathinda, Patiala, Jalandhar, Sri Anandpur Sahib (Urban) and Dera Baba Nanak have an inventory of over Rs 30,000 crore. GMADA in Mohali has alone an inventory of near Rs 20,000 crore.

Besides, near 50 per cent of the properties transferred to Punjab Urban Planning and Development (PUDA) authorities under the optimum utilisation of vacant government land (OUVGL) scheme during the last SAD-BJP government is still lying unsold. The state government had then raised a loan of Rs 2,000 crore by mortgaging the properties to banks. Under the OUVGL scheme, PUDA has been trying to auction them after developing these.