The Punjab and Haryana High Court’s stay order on land dispossession of farmers in Phase-III of the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park (RGCTP) in Kisangarh has placed a dampener on the spirits of Chandigarh Administration and IT players alike.
For Chandigarh Administration, stalling the land acquisition process means a number of hitches and glitches for it, as in December 2006, Infosys wishing to expand its presence in the tech park, had requested Chandigarh Administration for any available land, as the IT giant was ready and willing to acquire at least 100-more acres in the RGCTP.
However, it will not only be Infosys that has to shelf its plans, there are other firms too, those who showed keen interest in setting up operations in the tech park that will also have to rethink their business strategies. Until the final verdict on the acquisition of available land comes through, Chandigarh Administration’s plans for an area dedicated to small scale firms affiliated with Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) will also come under the scanner. Since, last year, RGCTP had planned to set aside more than 160-acres for small players falling under the STPI scheme.
In addition, the final decision of the High Court will also restrict the extent of the SEZ area in the IT Park. In a bid to attract IT players to set up shop in the tech park, Chandigarh Administration has been making considerable effort to bestow a SEZ status on the third phase of RGCTP.
Beginning its land acquisition in 2006, Chandigarh Administration’s planned that the third phase would comprise of 235-acres of land in total. However, the third phase, the one that is the largest in land size compared to the first two phases, has come under a lot of scrutiny on account of land acquisition for the same. The farmer community at large, from in and around the city’s vicinity, including areas overlapping those ear-marked for the IT Park’s expansion, have staged protests against the administration, on account of the land marked for acquisition being priced, much lower than the actual real estate market prices.
Mostly, the farmers are agitating against government prices, which according to officials was Rs. 18-lakhs per acre during the land acquisition 2002 – 2003 phase. However, the current compensation rates though double the last offered prices, are considerably lower than what private real estate players are prepared to pay i.e. as much as, Rs. 50-lakhs per acre for prime locations in and around the city, and the prices at Kisangarh could be almost, if not more than Rs. 50-lakhs per acre.
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Source: IndiaRealEstateblog
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