Tthe Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is set to officially bend its rules on land deduction for town planning schemes to benefit a few plot owners in the city.
The issue pertains to deducting just 25% instead of the mandatory 40% of land from private plot owners while drafting TP Scheme 32 for the Shahwadi-Behrampura area.
This TP scheme covers 228.9 hectares. The proposal will be put before the TP committee of the AMC and after approval will be forwarded to the state government for consideration.
Land is deducted from private plot owners in TP schemes to pool land for common facilities and readjustment. This creates space for public amenities such as roads, parks, utilities, and social infrastructure.
The local urban authority negotiates with landowners to pool their lands and then returns a smaller plot after deducting a certain percentage. In the present case, the AMC was supposed to get 91.60 hectares if it applied the 40% rule. As the proposal seeks to deduct just 25%, the AMC will get just 57.25 hectares for public purposes.
At current market rates, Shahwadi-Behrampura plots sell for about Rs 50,000 per square metre. If the 25% land deduction is allowed by the AMC’s TP committee, the AMC loses about Rs 1,700 crore worth of land. The AMC initially drafted TP Scheme 32 with a 40% deduction on April 5 last year, combining 24 survey numbers of Behrampura and three survey numbers of Shahwadi. In December, the first draft of the scheme was sent to the state government for approval. A letter from the state government later ordered reducing it to 25%.
In 2016, the AMC had moved the Supreme Court to ensure that 40% was deducted from plots owned by farmers in the green belt around the city. The farmers had fought for a 20% to 25% deduction. They later agreed to the 40% deduction.
Earlier, Auda had drafted two TP schemes for Bodakdev in which the deduction was set at 30%, while in the case of four TP schemes in Vejalpur and Prahladnagar, the standard deduction was 50%.
“Apart from these, 50% was deducted from plot owners in TP schemes of the Sola-Science City zone. After several requests, the deduction was reduced to 40%. If certain plot owners are favoured with a 25% deduction, this will cause a controversy,” said a senior AMC official.
