Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) has plans to procure 462 hectares of land for its ambitious Harnandipuram housing scheme proposed to be developed on the land of eight villages adjacent to the Delhi Meerut Road.
Instructions were issued to a committee, that includes officials from the authority and the district administration, to analyse the market rate of the land to ascertain the purchase price, officials said. The authority is coming up with the new scheme after 20 years with the last scheme being Madhuban Bapudham located adjacent to the Delhi Meerut Road.
For the new Harnandipuram scheme, the authority has proposed planned development over 520 hectares of the land belonging to eight villages of Mathurapur, Shamsher, Champatnagar, Bhandakhurd, Nangla Firoz Mohanpur, Bhowapur, Shahpur Nijmorta and Morta.
โOf the 520 hectares, 462 hectares is proposed to be directly purchased from farmers as it is the fastest way to procure land in comparison to the process under the land acquisition. Officials have been asked to identify the families of farmers and also land free from encumbrances. The committee will also analyse the list of sale deeds executed in the area in the last six months. This will help us ascertain the market rates at which we can purchase the land,โ said Atul Vats, vice-chairperson of the authority.
Officials said that apart from the 462 hectares of land, they already have 11 hectares of land with the authority while the rest will be procured from the gram sabhas.
The activists, however, believe that the land procurement by GDA will not be a cakewalk.
โAlready, the Madhuban Bapudham scheme has been marred by farmersโ issues and the scheme is still not fully complete. Due to issues of land, the Northern peripheral road (connecting NH-9 to Raj Nagar Extension) is yet to be fully developed. So, it will not be easy for GDA to procure farmersโ land for their new scheme and it may face delays,โ said Rajendra Tyagi, social-activist and former councilor from Raj Nagar.
The GDA officials, on the other hand, said that they may go in for land acquisition if the farmers deny the proposal for direct purchase of land.
โA new scheme is planned after 20 years and it is for providing planned housing and other amenities. We expect that the committee should finalise the purchase rates of land by January, 2025,โ Vats added.
The new scheme will be near to the special development areas and transit-oriented development zones planned alongside the corridors of the Regional Rapid Transit System project. All the eight Namo Bharat stations under the RRTS project are operational at present.
