New circle rates of properties in Delhi go into force

New Delhi: The new circle rates — the minimum valuation at which properties have to be registered with the government — came into effect in Delhi today, which is likely to push up property prices in the city.

The rates in Category A colonies have been hiked by 200 per cent, category B by 50 per cent while in remaining coloneis the rates will go up by 22 per cent.

As per the government order, Rs 6.45 lakh per square metre has been fixed as new circle rate for category A colonies like Greater Kailash, Defence Colony, Gulmohar Park, Panchsheel Enclave, Anandlok, Green Park, Golf Links and Hauz Khas.

This means nobody would be allowed to buy land and immovable properties in these colonies for less than Rs 6.45 lakh per square metre. The existing circle rate in category A colonies is Rs 2.15 lakh.

The rates in Category B neighbourhoods like Andrews Ganj, Kalkaji, Munirka Vihar and Nehru Enclave have been increased and fixed at Rs 2,04,600 per square metre as against the current rate of Rs 1,36,400 per square metre.

The circle rates were last hiked in October last year by upto 250 per cent.
Officials said the government decided to hike the circle rates to cut the black money component in property transactions.

Government expects to generate an additional revenue of Rs 200 crore from hike in circle rates.

In 2011-12, Delhi government had collected Rs 2,000 crore in revenue from registration of properties and Rs 1,300 crore has been collected so far in current fiscal.

For C category colonies, the circle rate has been hiked to Rs 1,33,224 per square metre from the current Rs 1,09,200 while in neighbourhoods under Category D the new rates will be Rs 1,06,384 as against existing rate of Rs 87,200.

The rate for colonies under category E has been hiked from Rs 47,840 to Rs 58,365 per square metre while for F category colonies, the rate will be Rs 47,140 as against the existing rate of Rs 38,640.

In respect of category G colonies, the new rate will be Rs 38,442 per square metre as against existing Rs 31,510 while for H category colonies, it has been hiked to Rs 19,361 from Rs 15,870.

                                          Cops, e-way firm submit toll plaza plan

CHANDIGARH: The Gurgaon police and the concessionaire of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway have agreed on reserving two lanes for emergency and VIP movements on both sides of the toll plaza in order to further decongest traffic.

As per a 36-point plan submitted on Tuesday in Punjab and Haryana high court by the Gurgaon police, the concessionaire has also given consent to restore the highway illumination system and traffic signals.

The HC had asked the Gurgaon police and the concessionaire to submit a detailed plan for checking the traffic snarls near the toll plaza on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway.

The concessionaire and the police department had held a meeting and agreed upon the plan following HC orders. As per the report, it has also been decided that the minimum value for general tag cards be reduced to Rs 200 and validity of the card be enhanced for longer duration. It has also been decided that the red line marking on the road would be made more prominent for accumulated vehicles beyond which toll gates are to be opened as per court directions.

On both sides of the red line marking a pole with two CCTV cameras would be erected to monitor and record toll gate opening with recording facility so that accurate and smooth operation is ensured along with the transparency.

A monthly coordination meeting will be held in the first week of every month to monitor the progress of work or take care of any other coordination. Placing the report on record, the division bench of the HC headed by Justice S K Mittal fixed the case for January 17 for hearing and directed all the parties to inform the court as how many of these steps have been implemented by them to control the traffic problem. On November 16, apparently dissatisfied over the existing measures to check the traffic snarls near toll plaza of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway near Gurgaon, Punjab and Haryana high court had directed the authorities to sit together to work out some strategy for the permanent solution of the problem.

                          Smart cards available at toll gates: Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd

GURGAON: During Tuesday’s hearing in Punjab and Haryana high court, the private concessionaire, Delhi-Gurgaon Super Connectivity Ltd (DGSCL), said that it has already started distributing “touch-and-go” smart cards to commuters. The court was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting held last month by the stakeholders to solve the traffic jam problem on the e-way.

DGSCL claimed that commuters have already been issued smart cards at the three toll plazas of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. The three toll plazas are located at the Delhi-Gurgaon border, Kherki Dhaula and IGI Airport in Delhi. A spokesperson said that the marketing department had planned to publicize it in the coming days. The concessionaire has introduced two types of cards – Flexi Smart and Smart Express. Flexi Smart does not offer any discount on toll charges and is valid for life (till 2023). This card is available at a minimum value of Rs 200. The same goes for tags.

Smart Express offers a discount of 50% on 40 trips and is valid for one month. In other words, commuters will have to pay just Rs 10.50 per trip instead of the actual amount of Rs 21, but at the same time the discount will be valid on 40 trips in one month. No identity proofs are required to buy these cards.

The spokesperson added that the company is planning to make the cards available at petrol pumps near the toll plaza for the commuter’s convenience. The company is also considering finding a cheaper version of tags to make them available to commuters free of charge. The imported tags are quite costly. As far as installation of CCTV cameras at the “red line” drawn after 400 metres on both sides of the 32-lane toll plaza is concerned, the spokesperson said that this would be done within a week’s time.

                          Charges for transferring property to heirs opposed

NOIDA: Residents have demanded that the state government refrain from implementing a proposal, currently under consideration by the Noida Authority, which would require property allottees to pay ‘transfer charges’ even in cases when they transfer it to their blood relations.

As per the proposal made by the UP department of stamps and registration to Noida Authority, any change in allotment of properties should be allowed only after execution of lease deeds. As per the stamp department, the practice in vogue now allows for allottees of properties to transfer their allotments to blood relatives before the execution of lease deeds.

“At present, allottees are free to transfer properties to blood relations by paying a marginal sum of Rs 1,000 as processing fees during the time period between allotment and signing of lease deeds,” said DIG (Stamps), VD Sharma. “The proposal has been made to make registration of all immovable properties compulsory once it has been allotted. Any further transfers would require fresh registration and payment of stamp duties,” he added.

Stamp department officials said that Noida Authority has agreed to the proposal and is working upon implementing it soon. However, residents and industries are miffed over the fact that they would be forced to pay in terms of transfer charges for passing on properties to their natural heirs. Federation of Noida Industries has written to the state government not to allow implementation of the proposal.

The policy, if implemented, would be applicable to all categories of allottees, including residential, commercial and industrial sectors. RWAs have opposed the proposal and demanded that Noida Authority not make any changes to the existing system involving transfer of properties to blood relations. “It is an extremely sensitive issue for residents. The Authority should not implement the proposal before holding proper discussions with RWAs,” said Suresh Tiwari, secretary general of Federation of Noida RWAs.

NOIDA: Illegal colonies continue to thrive as nearly 100 acres have been found to have been encroached by the land mafia who are selling unauthorized plots in Sector 75 of Noida. Local residents say that even though Noida Authority officials know about this, no action has been taken by them yet.

Residents allege that scores of people who want to build their dream home in the NCR are being cheated by the illegal colonizers.

A TOI team visited Sector 75 and found that the green belt was heavily encroached on. Even construction was being undertaken on some of the plots. When the issue was raised before the Noida Authority, officials assured that they will conduct a drive to raze encroachments from Tuesday. “We will send a team to conduct a probe and the drive to demolish illegal construction on the land will begin from Tuesday,” said Noida Authority OSD, Manoj Rai.

The illegal colonizers have been taking advantage of the land row that has been going on in Greater Noida for quite some time. Sources said that as homebuyers fear that their investments may get stuck in Noida Extension projects, they are becoming easy prey to the land mafia who have been selling land at Rs 5,000 per square yard after illegally cutting plots on green belts.

The role of government agencies will also be put under the scanner as not only are electricity connections being provided to these colonies, but even the properties are being registered. “The colonizers assure buyers by saying that the land would be regularized and considered as abadi area of neighbouring villages,” said an Authority source.

Sources said that colonizers have been directly approaching the farmers and developing colonies on their farmlands. In some cases, even farmers are engaged in developing these colonies. This trend has been adopted from Loni area of Ghaziabad where illegal colonies have been developed on a large scale on farming land, which is illegal.

NOIDA: Following its decision to speed up work on the much-awaited Faridabad-Noida-Ghaziabad (FNG) corridor project, the Noida Authority has decided to begin its planned anti-encroachment drive along the site of the proposed highway from December 6.

The anti-encroachment drive was proposed earlier in September this year to rid the area of all unauthorized construction and infringements.

While the authorities had managed to free around 10,000 sqm of land worth around Rs 200 crore in the first two days at the time, the drive fizzled out soon after.

However, following a meeting of the Authority CEO Sanjeev Saran with the chief engineer and work circle heads of the concerned area, the Authority has planned to resume the drive from Thursday. The drive will rid the proposed FNG corridor site as well as the land around it of encroachments to pave way for the construction work of the 16km stretch of the corridor that falls under the jurisdiction of the Noida Authority.

“The site for the proposed corridor as well as the entire stretch around it is heavily encroached upon mostly by people from neighbouring villages who intend to cut out illegal plots and develop unauthorized colonies in the area,” said an Authority official. “However, we have decided to put an end to any such activity once and for all. The drive that will last for about a week will ensure that the entire area is free of encroachments,” he said.

The Authority has already made public its decision to treat the project on a “priority basis”. Officials now say that with the drive later this week, all problems related to the project will be “resolved at once and the construction work will be fast tracked.”

NEW DELHI: Drawing upon the Delhi-Agra Expressway model, the government is set to allow development of seven new townships spread over 20,000 hectares along the proposed Delhi-Jaipur Expressway, resulting in a fresh real estate rush along the 265-km road.

Senior government officials told TOI that the Haryana government has already approved in-principle the plan for three new clusters in Manesar, Pataudi and Rewari, while Rajasthan is expected to allow building four new townships in Behror, Kotputli, Sahapura and Chomu.

The townships in Haryana would be spread over at least 6,000 hectares with those in Rajasthan are expected to occupy around 14,000 hectares. In both states, the projects would get special access to the expressway.

The proposed Rs 12,000 crore expressway is in addition to the existing highway connecting Delhi and Jaipur, where a new city is being built in Neemrana as part of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor which will have another half-a-dozen new towns that will spring up along the way.

Real estate development is being offered as a sweetener to the road developer, who is also in line to get viability gap assistance to make the project financially viable. A final call on viability gap funding is, however, yet to be taken although the Centre does provide up to 40% assistance to infrastructure projects undertaken under the public private partnership (PPP) mode. But in these cases, the project developer does not get real estate rights.

The projects are on the lines of the Yamuna Expressway, the road that connects Greater Noida and Agra. In the case of Yamuna Expressway, Uttar Pradesh government had acquired land for building the road as also for real estate developments. Jaypee, which is the concessionaire for the expressway, had then bought land tracts from the state government in phases.

In case of the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway, the government will only acquire land for the road project. But the company that bags the contract for the toll road project through competitive bidding will have to directly buy land for real estate development.

The move is significant as the Yamuna Expressway model had come under criticism for the government role in land acquisition, especially for real estate development. In fact, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had joined villagers who were protesting against the Mayawati government’s policy.

The proposed expressway is likely to branch out from the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway somewhere between Mahipalpur and Gurgaon toll plaza. Portion of the expressway in the capital is likely to be elevated. The six-lane expressway will pass through Manesar, Rewari and Kothputli.

Sources in Haryana government said the exact location of the projects along the expressway would be approved later although the approval has been communicated to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The town and country planning department (DTCP) has also informed the district planning heads about the plan.