Extra burden on plot owners

GREATER NOIDA: Homebuyers who had booked their flats before the land acquisition row started seem to be the only persons who are not expected to face any financial burden after the Allahabad verdict. Individual plot owners, who were allotted land by the Greater Noida Authority through a lucky draw a few years back, stand to get no respite.
Authority (GNIDA) officials say that a hike in land rates to the tune of 15-20 per cent is imminent for such plot owners as the Authority has to collect funds to pay extra compensation to farmers.The GNIDA does an annual cost calculation of development works undertaken in Greater Noida every year regarding civil, electricity works and so on. As per the agreement with the allottees of land, it adds this cost to the allotment rates. “This clause also provides the Authority the right to recover from land allottees the cost borne by it on a prospective basis, in terms of increase in land acquisition rates,” said a senior official of the Authority. “Given the huge costs involved in paying extra compensation to farmers, a hike of 15-20 per cent is imminent for all land owners. A final rate is to be worked out in the next board meeting,” added the official.
Plot owners foresee this hike as a major burden on their pockets since most of them belong to middle-income families who got the plots for end use and not for commercial purposes. “My income will not allow me to pay such stiff rates on the plots that we have been allotted,” said Sumit Bansal, a private sector employee, who has a 120sqm plot in sector 3 of Noida Extension. “I have also taken a housing loan from a bank after exhausting my savings on this plot. I have no idea where to get the extra money,” added Bansal.
Homebuyers are, for the time being, immune from any hike in costs as builders have assured them that cost escalation of land will not be passed on to existing customers. “We have to bear the costs ourselves because we have purchased land directly from the Authority,” said RP Tyagi, a medical professional, who had won a 120sqm plot in a lucky draw in 2008.
There are around 4,000 plot owners who had been allotted plots of various sizes under the scheme floated by GNIDA in 2008. The provision given to builders for increase in floor area ratio (FAR) will allow them to construct 25- 30 per cent more housing units over the same area and thereby help them tide over sharing the compensation burden to be handed out to farmers. “However, the same provision, even if applicable to individual plot owners, will not be beneficial to us as we are not going to use our plots for commercial purposes,” said Saket Budhiraja, an employee in a publishing firm in Delhi, who had been allotted a 200sqm plot.
Plot owners also complain that despite the legal tangle, the Authority, instead of suspending payment of all instalments till the time the dispute is resolved, has insisted that they pay them regularly or face penalties. “My instalment was due for August, but given the legal tangle I delayed payment till October. The GNIDA penalized me for delaying the instalment,” said Budhiraja.