Gandhinagar:The Gujarat government has prepared an ordinance to regularise around 33.88 lakh square metres of land which were seized under the now-defunct Urban Land Ceiling Act prior to 1999 in five major cities and later on encroached upon by people to build huts and houses.

The ordinance will be sent to Governor O P Kohli within two days for his approval, Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel announced here today.

“We are taking this decision for the benefit of around four lakh members of 70,000 families who have been living on this land since 1999, when the ULC Act was repealed by the Centre.

“This land was seized by government under that Act prior to 1999. After the Governor gives his assent, we will issue a notification to invite applications from these occupants,” Patel said addressing a press conference.

As per the data shared by the deputy CM, the government had seized a total of 1.49 crore sq meter of land in five major cities under the ULC Act when it was in force till 1999.

These cities are Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot and Jamnagar.

After a recent survey, the government came to know that the poor and middle class citizens have already built their huts and houses on 33.88 lakh sq meter of land long back.

However, since the land does not belong to these illegal occupants, they were not able to sell it or make any new construction on the existing structure, said Patel.

“Now, these occupants can own this land by paying a nominal portion of prevailing ‘jantri’ rates in respective cities. We will charge as low as 10 per cent of jantri rate if the plot is less than 25 sq metre. The rate will go up in proportion to the size of the plot,” said the minister who was accompanied by Revenue Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama.

Jantri rates are the minimum price of land / building in a particular area. Jantri is the government document which specifies the market price of the land and buildings.

According to Chudasama, this facility is not available for those who have established industrial or commercial units on the ULC land after encroachment.

“In our survey, we have found that the poor and middle class citizens are living on this plots for many years. Thus, we have decided to regularise the construction meant only for residential purpose. This ordinance does not cover industrial or commercial establishments,” said Chudasama.

DeshGujarat