Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked all Ministries to submit details of unutilised Government land and properties within 15 days to create a land bank in States and Union Territories.
The move will help the Centre chalk out developmental schemes as per availability of public land and speed up ongoing projects, including affordable housing to all by 2022.
last week, the Prime Minister had held a meeting in this regard and expressed annoyance over the slow pace of works on collecting details of Government land and properties.
According to officials, Ministries and Union Territories are not keen to provide details of public land and properties.
“The Prime Minister’s Office is closely monitoring the progress of the ambitious projects as some States have found it difficult to match the pace with their peers. The Ministry of Urban Development is the nodal agency,” said officials on the condition of anonymity.
“Once the land bank is created, it will help chalk out better infrastructure schemes in future,” said officials citing an example of Peripheral Expressway projects that got delayed several years due to land acquisition issues in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Officials also feel that the Government wants to build a land bank to give a push to the affordable housing initiative. The States are facing a problem in planning housing projects because of the paucity of land.
Officials also cited the case of Delhi, which doesn’t have jurisdiction over land and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the land owning agency, doesn’t not have any records or details of land owned by it.
Officials said States, such as Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Delhi, have found it difficult to find land for low-cost housing projects. “These States would be asked to send housing proposals once pockets of land have been identified, thereby speeding up the implementation of the scheme,” officials said.
On the other hand, the Urban Development Ministry’s prime focus is on unutilised land within developed Government colonies as they already have basic amenities and getting approvals will be easier.
Incidentally, the Railway Ministry too has started creating a land bank. And both Kerala and Haryana have decided to buy land from those farmers who wish to sell their land for future projects. Officials said the aim is to prevent distress sale of land by farmers and to involve the landowners in decision making while locating the sites of development projects.