After losing vast tracts of agricultural for paltry sums, in the 31 years of Ulcra, farmers are now looking forward to forging joint-ventures with landowners.
NAGPUR: After losing vast tracts of agricultural for paltry sums, in the 31 years of Urban Land Ceiling and (Regulation) Act (Ulcra), farmers are now looking forward to forging joint-ventures with landowners for its different projects.
When farmers of Magarpatta in Pune started converting their lands into an urban zone in the early 90s, they formed a company and pursued the development of a software technology park on their lands, which had become part of the Pune agglomeration area. Experts say the government is now keen to emulate the Magarpatta model. Similar joint-venture projects could be implemented with the collectives of farmers whose “surplus lands” have already been acquired.
Admitting that Ulcra had done great injustice to farmers around cities like Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Solapur, Sangli, Kolhapur and Aurangabad, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said the state was trying to implement housing schemes on the already acquired land through joint-ventures with land-owner farmers.
Using the Ulcra instrument, the government had acquired “surplus land” at the rate of Rs4,000 to a maximum Rs2 lakh per acre to farmers while acquiring surplus land in the nine agglomerations (the market price was ten times more).
Moreover, the Ulcra repeal has evoked a foul-cry from those who have already lost their lands. Former MLA Sunil Shinde, who had filed a PIL before the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Ulcra land misuse, has demanded that the state return acquired lands to original owners, mostly small farmers.
Supporting Shinde’s demand, BJP legislator Devendra Fadnavis pointed out that the government had acquired only 553-hectare land in 301 cases in Nagpur between 1976 and September 2007. But in the last two months, the competent authorities acquired a staggering 1,571-hectare land from 898 landowners under Ulcra, or three times the land acquired in the preceding 30 years, ahead of its repeal.
“The government should return this land to the owners, now that it has repealed the outdated Act,” Fadnavis demanded. “Or, it should give exemption under section 20 to the farmers for low-cost housing schemes.”
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