GHAZIABAD: GDA has decided to chip the proposed Harnandipuram township by nearly 150 hectares.
The township was proposed to come up on 521 hectares — almost the same size as Indirapuram — which would require the Authority to acquire land from 8 villages at an estimated Rs 5,000 crore. The costs were to be shared equally by GDA and UP govt under the CM Urban Expansion New City Promotion Scheme.
GDA secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh informed a six-member panel, set up for supervising the land acquisition process under UP govt’s direction, that for now, it has decided not to acquire land from three villages from it was to acquire over 150 hectares—Shahpur Morta (77.4 hectares), Bhowapur (68.9 hectares) and Morta (5.4 hectares).
“The financial status of the GDA is not sufficient to acquire land from all eight villages in one go,” Singh said.
The official added about 127 hectares are to be acquired from farmers of Nagla Ferozepur, Mohanpur, Atour, Champat Nagar, Shamsher, Bhenda Khurd, Mathurapur and Shapur Morta. The rest—about 242 hectares— is either with the GDA already or is gram sabha land.
DM Deepak Meena told TOI that at the meeting on Thursday, they also discussed the rates at which land will be acquired for the township.
“The panel has decided that land acquisition rate will be determined on mutual consent between GDA and landowners as the process was less time consuming. In case there is no consensus, plots will be acquired under the Land Acquisition Act,” he said.
GDA has now been directed to start a land survey. “The development authority has some land parcels in its bank. With three villages out of the purview now, only 127 hectares need to be acquired,” Meena added.
The map of the new township, vetted at the GDA Board’s meeting in Aug last year, showed that the township will span from Pipeline Road in the north of the city to Northern Peripheral Road in the east and Morti in the south. As per one estimate, Rs 10,000 crore will be needed to develop Harnandipuram, and nearly 50% will go into acquiring land.
The six-member committee, comprising, the DM, ADM (finance and revenue), GDA vice chairperson, an official from the tehsil level, the stamp department and the GDA Secretary, was set up in keeping with a govt order, which mandates that a committee must be set up to decide on land rates if the cost of acquisition is more than Rs 10 crore.
