HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh government is looking at an ideal model of land pooling, which will not only be beneficial for the landowners but also take care of the future challenges, for construction of the capital city near Vijayawada.
The government is planning to acquire between 10,000 and 50,000 acres of land through land pooling. The government is expected to complete land pooling in a year and complete construction of the capital in three years.
Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat here on Tuesday, municipal administration minister P Narayana, who heads the advisory committee on developing a capital city for the state, said that after studying the land acquisition models of Chandigarh, Gandhinagar and Naya Raipur, the government had decided to choose a model which would also meet the future needs.
Around 6,400 hectares were acquired through land pooling for building Chandigarh, 5,700 hectares for Gandhinagar and 8,000 hectares for Naya Raipur. “As we want to develop an ultra-modern capital city, we plan to acquire between 10,000 and 50,000 acres of land so that we do not face problems being faced by those three cities,” he said.
Under the land-pooling model adopted by the Gujarat government to develop Gandhinagar, 15 pc space was kept for roads, 5 pc as open, 5 pc for social and physical infrastructure, 10 pc for lower income groups, 15 pc for land bank and the remaining 50 pc for landowners and development cost. In the case of Naya Raipur, the government had kept only 5 pc for social infrastructure due to which educational and other important institutions did not come up in the area.
The Haryana government built a township near Chandigarh by distributing the land between the government and the farmers whose lands were acquired. Around 40 pc of the land was utilised for roads and other amenities and the remaining 60 pc was shared. Farmers got 27.5 pc of the developed land.
The Gujarat government adopted a similar method to develop a township in 2,000 acres near Gandhinagar.
Land pooling allows property owners to maintain ownership and development costs associated with land pooling process are paid through creation of new, denser properties that can be sold or leased, and each property owner is compensated in proportion to the original property value.
“The profits from the projects will be enjoyed by the landowners who pool their lands for such projects,” Narayana explained.