Delhi’s land pooling policy may influence property prices in NCR
As a consequence of the new land-pooling policy, around 40,000 acres of land is likely to join of Delhi’s property market. The availability of developable land in the city is expected to bring up around 1.5 million new apartments in the next three to five years, which may probably influence the pricing in other parts or the National Capital Region (NCR).
Earlier, the Delhi Development Authority used to approach private owners and acquire land from them at a low price, and then develop projects on the land. The developed area, with residential or commercial properties, was then sold at premium rates. However, as the rate of properties escalated, this policy came under threat from land-owners who demanded more compensation.
New land pooling policy
The new policy aims at freeing up land and ensuring that infrastructure is in place even before the actual development is started on the land. It would be beneficial to the landowners, since land pooling will return a major part of the land to the landowner, unlike expropriation.
The new policy would prove to be a perfect method for city development and a good alternative for land banking and expropriation. 40 to 60 percent of land, which is obtained by landowners through pooling, will be returned to them after the development of infrastructure by DDA. This can be kept by them or given to private developers.
The landowners can also pool lands for development with the land-owning agency of the city. Further, when the government takes over those land chunks, the owners will not receive any compensation. But they will get 48 to 60 percent of the developed land, once the infrastructure is in place. The owners can either develop project on this land by themselves or give it to other developers.
More housing units to come up in Delhi
As per the Delhi Master Plan 2021, several hundreds of acres of land will be developed in order to provide accommodation to additional population of around 48 lakh, as estimated. It is likely that the supply of more residential units with planned development would probably reduce the prices.
Relief from land acquisition issues
With the new land pooling policy, it will be easy for the DDA to find land for development of new housing units, as it reduces the risks involved in land acquisition. Adding to it, the new land acquisition bill which has been recently passed by the Central government further raises the difficulty of acquiring land.
No abrupt price-hikes
The land pooling policy will keep a check on the uncontrolled prices of properties located in various areas of the NCR such as Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad, etc. The sudden price hikes would remain under control in the city.
The policy is believed to bring in some relief to the home buyers in the NCR region. Realty experts opine that Noida and Gurgaon may not continue to be investors’ favourite destination in the near future. However, it will take a few years to start developing projects under the new land pooling policy and at present, some clarifications regarding the policy are awaited.
The satellite cities in the NCR are not likely to see a similar growth which has been witnessed in the past few years. For homebuyers, it will be the right time to buy new properties.
However, the new policy may or may not ease the prices of properties in the NCR. Or it may lead to price correction only in selected areas while the rest would remain stable. But the real estate market of Delhi will certainly witness a ‘metamorphosis’ in the near future. Many new localities are likely to blossom which might slow down the price hikes in some of the micromarkets. Whatsoever, the new land pooling policy will lead to tremendous change in the different regions of Delhi-NCR.
