CHENNAI: Owners of a plot, earmarked as Open Space Reservation (OSR) land such as a park or a road in approved layouts, won’t be eligible for compensation if the government acquires it for infrastructure projects, according to fresh guidelines stipulated by the land administration department.
The decision was taken after it came to light that after the approval of housing layouts, promoters were selling the plots in the layouts without conveying or handing over the Open Space Reservation (OSR) lands to local bodies by way of registered gift deeds. This, the land administration department said, resulted in confusion over paying compensation for the acquisition of OSR land.
According to the guidelines, the sale of OSR land will become null and void since such land is already registered in favour of the local body and vested with the government. Necessary action has to be taken by local body to nullify or cancel the document through the registration department.
While it is not clear how much the state exchequer spent by paying compensation for acquiring OSR land, a former district revenue officer (DRO) highlighted the acquisition of 5.1 acres near Sriperumbudur. “It was OSR land belonging to the Nemili panchayat; NHAI paid around `300 crore as compensation to many people who had fraudulently claimed ownership. Now, it’s being probed.”
Only common amenities like schools, hospitals, community halls, Libraries (belonging to the layout promoter and saleable but to be used only for their designated purposes) will be treated as private properties during acquisition.
KP Subramanian, former professor of urban engineering at Anna University, said one feature of the land acquisition act was that no land could be acquired without the payment of compensation. Planning laws and rules can only regulate the use and can’t undo the ownership.
As such, 10% of land in a layout can be reserved for public purpose, but the authorities can’t direct the owner to give it to them free. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in a recent judgement ruled that the land owner need not hand over the OSR land; it is sufficient if the owner files an affidavit to the effect that the OSR land will not be used for any other purpose.
In any layout, areas earmarked for road network and OSR are two different entities. The owner/promoter has an obligation to form roads giving access to plots when his land is divided into housing sites. Once the plots are sold to buyers, they become the owners of the roads and the original land owner ceases to have any right. Such private roads can be declared public only on the requisition of a majority of the plot owners as per the TN District Municipalities Act, 1920/Municipal Corporation acts.
The urban local bodies can’t direct the plot owners to hand over the roads. It implies that the roads can remain private. Therefore, the provision to handover as a gift deed may not stand the scrutiny of the courts, for the rules can’t be in conflict with the mother acts, he said.
Compensation matter
A former professor of urban engineering at Anna University said one feature of the land acquisition act was that no land could be acquired without the payment of compensation