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Business News/ Politics / News/  Raigad farmers want to develop own township in Navi Mumbai
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Raigad farmers want to develop own township in Navi Mumbai

Raigad farmers want to develop own township in Navi Mumbai

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Mumbai: The 3,000 families that will be getting some of their Navi Mumbai land back may seek to develop it on their own rather than selling the plots to builders.

Farmers in Phunde and adjoining villages in Raigad district of Maharashtra, whose land was acquired for the Nhava Sheva port project, now called Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), want to follow the Magarpatta City example. The shipping ministry last week notified the decision to return 12.5% of the total land acquired from the farmers.

They will get 111 hectares of land, valued at 10 crore per hectare by some property experts. Members of the families that gave up their land for the port are employed as labour at the port.

His family’s plot of about three hectares (eight acres) was part of the land acquired for the port.

The Magarpatta City township project was developed over 400 acres of land on the outskirts of Pune in the early 1990s. When the real estate market started booming in the city in the mid-1990s, farmers from Magarpatta village came together and formed a joint stock company to develop the township, instead of selling the land to builders.

Experts said the return of the land will lead to a mini boom in the local real estate market. With the state government planning an international airport in Panvel, real estate interest in Navi Mumbai is high. Apart from that, Anand Jain, a close associate of Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani, is planning a 1,766.13 hectares special economic zone (SEZ) in Navi Mumbai. JNPT is also planning to build a port-based SEZ.

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Farmers in the Phunde and adjoining villages in Raigad district of Maharashtra whose land were acquired for the Nava-Sheva port project, now the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, want to follow the Magarpatta City example instead of selling their land to the builders.

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“This move (the land return) will increase the supply in micro market and will also increase the transaction activity," said Subhankar Mitra, head, strategic consulting (west) at Jones Lang LaSalle India, a property consultancy. A similar boom took place in the adjoining Ulwe village in 2010 following news about the international airport coming up there.

It will take two-three years for construction activity to begin, said Suresh Haware, managing director of Haware Engineers and Builders Pvt. Ltd, a Navi Mumbai-based real estate firm. “The land which these farmers are going to get is in Dronagiri node of Navi Mumbai, one of the most underdeveloped areas," he said.

Suresh Patil, a 43-year-old technician at JNPT and one of the gainers from the government, sees the move benefiting his family. “I am a class III employee, he said. “I want to make my children class I." Patil has two daughters and a son.

“The value of land which I am going to get is around 3.5 crore at the current rate. The central government has just notified it, but the state government will take time for land distribution. I am not planning to sell the land in the immediate future," he said. “Instead of selling the land to a builder, if I develop it on my own, I will get a higher return. I will go by the consensus in the community."

The state government’s industrial and township development arm, City and Industrial Development Corporation, the key architect of Navi Mumbai, is keen to help farmers in coming together and developing the land on their own, said chairman Pramod Hindurao. “We will discuss the issue at our next board meeting," he said.

Haware is sceptical about such an exercise. “Unlike farmers from Magarpatta, the Phunde farmers are not politically well-connected," he said. “To develop such a vast project, one needs political blessings."

makarand.g@livemint.com

Khushboo Narayan contributed to this story.

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Published: 28 Aug 2012, 11:19 PM IST
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