Indiramma: No land for seven lakh houses

By Desaraju Surya
HYDERABAD: The state government's ambitious Indiramma housing programme is running into trouble with land availability turning out to be a major problem in many districts. The government proposed to build 18 lakh houses for the shelterless this year and earmarked a sum of Rs 500 crore. Earlier, the escalating price of cement and steel proved a hurdle for launching the programme but the government succeeded in prevailing upon the companies to supply the materials at a reasonable price. But now, it is facing a rough weather as securing over 20,000 acres of land is proving to be a daunting task. With land value going up many folds over the past few months, owners are reluctant to part with their land for the government programme, informed sources said. The biggest worry, of course, is for the ruling party which pinned lot of hopes on Indiramma, particularly in the context of ensuing panchayat raj elections. The programme is to be implemented in 8,000 villages across the state this year but going by the current estimates it is unlikely that these villages will get the benefit. Out of the 18 lakh houses proposed, six lakh are being built on government land. With regard to another five lakh houses, the government is required to settle the "ownership rights". "In many districts there are encroachments on these land. If they are government land, we can straightaway build permanent houses and hand them over to the beneficiaries. But if they are private land, we have to acquire them first," a senior official in the Chief Minister's Office said. The real trouble, however, is construction of another seven lakh houses for which there is no land at all. The state government has appointed price negotiation committees under the chairmanship of the joint-collectors of respective districts to "bargain" with the land owners and acquire the land. Normally, the government pays only the book value (registration value) to the owners as compensation despite the market value of the land being much higher. In such cases, the owners are refusing to give away their valuable land for a lesser price.
In Krishna district, for instance, the government has to acquire several hundred acres of land for building houses to 52,554 applicants. But so far, the district authorities could identify land only for 18,000 houses. In mandals like Kankipadu, Ibrahimpatnam, Penamaluru and Gannavaram — where an acre land is now commanding up to Rs 50 lakh — the authorities are unable to lay hands on even an acre of land as against the requirement of 170 acres. While the entire district got Rs 52.55 crore for the Indiramma programme, land acquisition in these four mandals alone would require more than Rs 50 crore as per prevailing market value. "We are trying to find a solution to this by trying to arrive at a via-media rate. We may have to go for compulsory acquisition if the land owners do not agree to a negotiated settlement," an official said. This will again stir up a controversy as most of the land owners have political backing. Given this kind of a scenario, doubts are being raised as to whether the programme could be completed as planned. "There'd be some delay but the programme will be implemented at all costs," government officials said.