Ghaziabad authority won’t purchase land from three villages for Harnandipuram scheme for now

The scheme is proposed over an area of about 521 hectares, and about 462 hectares will be directly purchased from farmers

The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has proposed to leave out for the time being three of eight villages from which land was proposed to be purchased by the authority for the development of its ambitious Harnandipuram housing scheme near the Delhi-Meerut Road.

The district administration officials said a meeting was held on Thursday, to discuss the rates of proposed land purchases for the scheme and the authority put forward a proposal leaving out the three villages. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

GDA officials said the three villages of Bhovapur, Shahpur Nijmorta and Morta have been left out while land will be purchased from the five villages of Mathurapur, Nagla Firoz Mohanpur, Shamsher, Champat Nagar, and Bhaneda Khurd.

The scheme is proposed over an area of about 521 hectares, and about 462 hectares will be directly purchased from farmers. The GDA figures show that land from three villages, which have been left out for now, is about 125.28 hectares.

“The GDA has proposed to leave out the three villages for now and go ahead with the phase 1 development of the Harnandipuram scheme with land from five villages. This is because the authority has found the land availability and procurement more easy in five villages. The rest of the land may be included in another phase,” said Rudresh Shukla, media coordinator, GDA.

However, GDA vice-chairperson Atul Vats said there was no such decision of dropping villages.

“There is no such decision of dropping the villages. These villages will be added to the second phase of the scheme. In fact, the whole of the scheme will be notified. The demands raised by farmers (objections) will be resolved in due course. No one has opposed the scheme, and It was originally planned in two phases,” Vats said.

The district administration officials said a meeting was held on Thursday, to discuss the rates of proposed land purchases for the scheme and the authority put forward a proposal leaving out the three villages.

“The GDA has given a proposal to leave out certain villages for now. They probably wish to move ahead with the scheme in a phase-wise manner. A committee will now move ahead to arrive at the rates on which the land can be purchased. For this, we are considering the prevailing circle rates and also the market rates. The rates are expected to be decided in another 10–15 days,” said Deepak Meena, district magistrate, who chaired the meeting.

Earlier in January, the authority identified land parcels for the scheme and also invited objections from farmers. Shukla said the status of objections and their disposal is not readily available.

“The three villages left out by the authority are the ones that have a higher circle rate than the others. It is a sudden move after farmers submitted objections. There is no official word from the authority about disposal of objections. It is the demand of farmers that circle rates in eight villages are not uniform (ranging between ₹500-5000 per square metre), and much less than the market rates. So, the final rate should be the ones that are acceptable to us. Otherwise, we may not give our land,” said Daksh Nagar, a resident of Raghunathpur.

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