The Hindu Business Line : Dream projects push up land values to exorbitant rates

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Dream projects push up land values to exorbitant rates

Depriving the poor of owning land; affecting ecological system

On the rise: Pressure on land in Kerala is heavy because of the high density of population at 819 per sq.km.

G.K. Nair

Aranmula (Kerala), April 2 Mr Satish, a chauffeur of an advocate, is a resident of a settlement colony at Kulamampoozhy in Aranmula village in Pathanamthitta district. Like everybody else, he also wishes to have a house of his own in his village.

As the normal land price in that area was around Rs 2,000 a cent, the poor chauffeur negotiated with a person who has shown interest to sell five cents of his land. The seller demanded Rs 3,000 a cent and both agreed for the deal about a year ago. Surprisingly, after making arrangements for the money when he contacted the seller recently, he said he would not sell it below Rs 30,000 a cent.

Mr Satish was almost breathless, as the demanded price was something, which his ears could not believe at all and eventually had to drop his dream to buy a piece of land and own a small house. It is just one example of things happening even in several rural villages of Kerala, needless to talk about the inaccessibility of poor and middle class people to a piece of land in the urban areas, where the land price has shot up several fold to Rs 5 lakh-30 lakh.

Proposed airport

A cent of marshland beside the State highway passing through Aranmula, a small temple town, famous for the Sri Parthasarathy Temple and the snake-boat race during the Onam festival, which used to be available at Rs 5,000 a cent an year ago is now offered at Rs 50,000- Rs 1 lakh a cent.

The reason for the exorbitant rise in price here is the recent reports of a proposed international airport in this rural village promoted by a company, Aranmula Aviation Ltd (AAL), incorporated under the Indian Companies Act 1956, and registered on February 1, 2007 with the Registrar of Companies, Kochi, with an initial capital is Rs 3 crore.

Till the announcement of this project say some six months ago, good plots on the main road here were available at Rs 50,000 a cent. But now, the asking price is over Rs 1.5 lakh a cent, Advocate Mr Sivadasan Nair, Pathanamthitta MLA and a native of Aranmula told Business Line.

The land prices were moving up slowly ever since Aranmula was declared some time back as a “Tourism village” with the objective of rehabilitating the artisans who manufacture the “Aranmula mirror (kannady)” and developing the snake-boat race in to a tourist sport etc. This was followed by a project to build regulator-cum-bridge and then the creation of a rubber dam across Pampa river. But, not a single penny has so far been spent on these projects and they still remain on the paper, alleged Mr Sadasivan.

“The situation has now reached such a stage that not a single inch of land is available for others to buy except for the real estate lobby. The poor and middle class people cannot think of buying a house plot as it is far beyond their reach”, he said. Many people, exploiting the situation by making hay when the sun shines and moved away after selling their land here to farther interiors, he added.

Different atmosphere

The atmosphere in other places is also not different. Land prices in the Municipal town Tiruvalla and its suburbs have also shot up several-fold after the arrival of a self financing medical college and hospital and professional colleges.

For most of these purposes hundreds of acres of paddy fields have been filled up with earth brought from interiors bulldozing the small mounts.

Even from the moment the announcement is made about a proposal to set up a techno-park, smart city, info-park, textile park or food park, multi-speciality hospital, professional colleges, special economic zones, airports, development of harbour/ports, container transshipment terminal and so on the buyers emerge on the scene and start buying even by offering more than what the seller is expecting.

Even there are reports of forcing the people having small holdings at strategic/ interested points to sell and move away.

Nobody knows where from the money comes. Pressure on land in Kerala is heavy because of the high density of population at 819 per sq.km. The real estate business has become highly lucrative because of very good demand and supply.

However, creation of high disposable incomes in the hands of people who never ever had dreamt of it might also contribute to inflation and the ever increasing high cost of living in this consumer state, an economist pointed out.

Paddy fields

On the other hand, the filling up of vast stretches of paddy fields and wetland systems which are in many “cases the flood plain areas” and natural reservoir helping to recharge the water flow into rivers, negatively affects the ecological system, biodiversity experts pointed out.

The State Biodiversity Board sources told Business Line that intangible services of the eco-system cannot be expressed in money terms. Yet, the global average value of forests would come to Rs 92,322 a hectare while that of wetland system would be more at Rs 6,80,110 a hectare.

In fact, tropical forests and wetlands are more complex system with higher biodiversity value and, hence, there average ecosystem services would be worth 6-10 times more.

It is against this background that hundreds of acres of wetland system in the tropical region is being reclaimed, they added.

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