Post by alexis on Apr 14, 2011 6:04:18 GMT -5
One cannot have a flourishing housing finance system in urban India unless legal impediments that restrict housing development are removed. The impediments are the Land Ceiling act and the Rent Control Act. Owning or even hiring an Apartment in Kochi is not an easy thing for people with small and marginal incomes. The skewed land development approaches are to be blamed for such a situation.
The Urban Land Ceiling Act has eaten into the vitals of our towns and cities. It has been an unmitigated disaster. It has laid down the maximum area of land that any individual could own in the urban areas. It prescribed that any excess land owned by any individual should be identified, notified and acquired for public purposes. It was a tool for limiting the area of land anybody could own in the urban areas and for ensuring the utilization of excess land for larger benefit of the community and for common good. The objective is, no doubt, quite laudable.
In a city like Mumbai, it has been noted that nearly 55 percent of the vacant urban land measuring around 1500 hectares is in the hands of just 91 individuals. Under the Urban Land Ceiling Act the owner has to surrender property in excess of 500 sq m to the government at the predetermined price.
In Kochi also greater developments are being hampered by the unproductive truncation in properties due to various reasons. Such a situation is not seen anywhere else. Properties have got fractured to such a small area, that the house owners themselves are unable to produce something of value from the piece of land under their control.
Even though Kochi has taken to the apartment culture several decades ago, greater developments as is being seen in Gurgaon or Noida are not being seen here mainly due to the non-availability of landed properties of the required size as a single plot.
The Urban Land Ceiling Act has eaten into the vitals of our towns and cities. It has been an unmitigated disaster. It has laid down the maximum area of land that any individual could own in the urban areas. It prescribed that any excess land owned by any individual should be identified, notified and acquired for public purposes. It was a tool for limiting the area of land anybody could own in the urban areas and for ensuring the utilization of excess land for larger benefit of the community and for common good. The objective is, no doubt, quite laudable.
In a city like Mumbai, it has been noted that nearly 55 percent of the vacant urban land measuring around 1500 hectares is in the hands of just 91 individuals. Under the Urban Land Ceiling Act the owner has to surrender property in excess of 500 sq m to the government at the predetermined price.
In Kochi also greater developments are being hampered by the unproductive truncation in properties due to various reasons. Such a situation is not seen anywhere else. Properties have got fractured to such a small area, that the house owners themselves are unable to produce something of value from the piece of land under their control.
Even though Kochi has taken to the apartment culture several decades ago, greater developments as is being seen in Gurgaon or Noida are not being seen here mainly due to the non-availability of landed properties of the required size as a single plot.