Facing a fund crunch, the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has decided to levy an additional charge on plots it had allotted/reserved in its Madhuban Bapudham housing scheme. Officials said the decision was taken for the authority to generate revenue to repay a loan taken recently to pay an additional amount of about ₹1,100 crore to farmers from whom land was acquired for the scheme, on directions of the Supreme Court.
The Madhuban Bapudham scheme is located at a prime location near the Delhi-Meerut Road and is spread over an area of about 1,231 hectares. The authority has so far carved out about 1,570 plots on the land, including 300 allotted to former Uttar Pradesh MLAs.
According to the property department, plots which were earlier allotted at ₹11,800 per square metre and ₹12,800 per sqm have now been hiked to ₹19,000 per sqm, the difference for which comes out to be ₹6,200 and ₹7,200 per sqm, respectively, which the allottees have now to pay.
“We have so far developed about 1,120 flats in multi-storeyed highrises besides other flats developed for economically weaker sections, lower income groups and middle income groups. Out of the 1,120 high-end flats, there are about 549 flats which are vacant. There will be no additional hike in the cost of any type of flats. However, if any new scheme of plots or flats is launched at Madhuban, the new rates will be ₹32,000 per sqm,” the officer said.
Officials said allottees will be informed through notices, which will be served in three phases to specified categories of allottees.
According to Kanchan Verma, authority’s vice chairperson, “In the first phase, we will be sending a notice to allottees that have made payments and also got registries executed for their plots. This category includes plots allotted to former MLAs. The second category is of allottees who will be sent notices will include allottees who have not got their plots registered but have paid up more than 50% of the cost.”
“The third category of plots will be of those who have got the plots reserved and also made payments but plots are yet to be chalked out. The decision of hike in cost has been taken up as per conditions of allotment which says that additional cost will have to be borne by allottees. In case anyone wants to, they can take a refund along with an interest of 9%. Apart from plots, we will not be levying additional cost on any of the flats developed,” she added.