New licensing policy will be game-changer for farmers: Haryana CM

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced the launch of the New Integrated Licensing Policy (NILP) 2015 for the development of Hyper and High Potential Urban Complexes in Gurgaon-Manesar, Faridabad-Ballabhgarh, Sohna, Sonepat-Kundli, Panipat and Panchkula-Kalka-Pinjore.

Calling it a game-changer, Khattar said the policy finds a proper balance between the aspirations of farmers/ landowners, buyer/ consumers of residential plots or flats, real estate developers and the government to make a win-win situation for all.

He said NILP 2015 brings in internationally acclaimed models of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), coupled with unique provisions that obviate the need for the government to resort to compulsory acquisition of land.

The policy enables small landowners to voluntarily monetise their land by participating in the process of licencing, real estate development, marketing and sale of their transferable development rights. He emphasised that in the earlier policies of the Department of Town & Country Planning Department, only a builder with over 100 acres of land was considered for developing a plotted colony in these areas. 

He said with a sharp rise of land value in urban areas of Gurgaon and Faridabad, the builders could not aggregate 100 acres on one hand. Small farmers/ landowners felt cheated since he had to wait either for the builders to buy his land at less than the market value or face the ignominy of compulsory acquisition by the government. Citing an example, he added that as a result of the previous government’s opaque policies, 10,000 acres in urban Gurgaon was lying unused with large gaps in infrastructure development, buyers of properties felt defrauded because of the lack of facilities and government agencies devoid of adequate resources and land for laying down the right infrastructure.

The CM said while bringing down the area norms for establishing a colony from 100 acres to 25 acres, the policy provides for a global FAR between 1.0 and 1.25 for colony size of 25-50 acres and above 50 acres, respectively. 

These builders can respectively raise their FAR utilisation to 1.25 ( for colonies up to 50 acres) and 1.50 ( for colonies more than 50 acres) by purchasing TDRs of land owners. Land owners will have freedom in selling FAR to any builder in a large planning unit. 

Each farmer will be eligible to sell his TDR certificate equivalent to 1 FAR for his land (eg about 4,047 sqm or 43,264 sqft for each acre) at market rates. In order to ensure optimum utilisation of very high priced land in these urban areas, the applicable density is also being increased to 250 PPA. Khattar said for the first time the concept of Transferable Development Rights (TDR) is being introduced comprehensively in Haryana. This concept will give an alternative to the farmers/ individual land owners having land less than 25 acres to obtain TDR certificate from the Department.