The Indian Express - Pune Newsline - November, 2007

ULCRA REPEAL   23,475 acres to be earmarked for construction; builders say prices will not come down soon.

A total of 22,000 hectares (approximately 54,363 acres) will be released in the city with the State Legislative Assembly on Thursday passing a resolution to repeal the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act of 1976. Of the 22,000 hectares, 9,500 hectares (23,475 acres) will be used for construction activity.
  
However, many city builders are still nurturing hopes that the cooling of  heated up land rates will take up to two years to become a reality. President of the Promoters and Builders Association of Pune(PBAP) Lalitkumar Jain, while welcoming the decision said, “Mere repeal of the Act will not bring down the prices. The government has to address the demand and supply issue and a master plan will have to readied for the same. Infrastructure should be made available to support the desire to provide affordable housing,” he said.
       
Municipal commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi too welcomed the decision, but said that land prices will definitely come down in the “near future.” This will help low cost housing for the poor and will also put a full stop to burgeoning slums, he said.
    
Another builder, Rohit Gera, vice president of PBAP, said the repeal of the Act and the ensuing price slump that could happen over 15 months would affect the “fly-by-night operators and not the regular real estate developers.” Also, the government decision to levy a tax on vacant land will have to assessed to see how much it would benefit the end user, he said.
   
With the Act being repealed by the state, it will also throw open the blocked funds under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), a pre-condition put by the Centre.
  
Schemes for the poor under the Development Control rules and the JNNURM will get more land for development, Pardeshi said.
      
While welcoming the repealing of the Act, district collector Prabhakar Deshmukh said that landowners will stand to be benefited as they can take up the development of their own land. “It’s likely to affect the land rates,” he said.
    
Business establishments such as malls and multiplexes will cash in on the extra land that’ll become available, said a senior state government officer.
 
There are 20,14,145 existing cases that are registered  under ULC, of which 14,789 have been addressed and 5,553 cases are pending, he said.
      
The ULCR Act was introduced in 1976 with the intention of preventing hoarding of land in private hands and facilitating the government in executing social and common welfare schemes. Thought the Centre scrapped the Act in 1999, Maharastra had held on to the law, with political parties in collusion with builders pressuring the government not to upset the rising real estate prices.

Mixed reaction from politicians

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE - NOVEMBER 29

THE city unit of BJP on Thursday welcomed the state government decision to repeal the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (ULCRA) and said the property prices in the city that had skyrocketed will now come down drastically. “The Congress-led State government unnecessary delayed the decision to repeal the Act to earn money from land deals,” leader of Opposition Vikas Mathkari said. He said the BJP-led government at the Centre had repealed the ACT in the country 1999 while the Congress government in the state had been delaying its repeal in the state. Mathkari said the property rates in the city were now beyond the reach of common man.
      
The State decision will make available thousands of acres for construction which will help in bridging the demand-supply gap for apartments in the city, he said. Congress leader Ulhas Bagul said that the things will become clear only after the state government comes out with a notification on the decision. “It is learnt that come conditions have been put while repealing the Act”, he said. Shiv Sena leader Shyam Deshpande criticized the decision saying the Congress government decision will not help the common public, as it was in the interest of builders, who could end up cornering most of the land thus released.

     Meanwhile, civic officers said the state government decision was unlikely to reduce the property rates drastically in the city as most of the land to be thus available for construction was in the 23 merged villages.