Now apparently the NCR government has started considering something to curb the high-flying property prices in the region by planning to bring over 30,000 acres of additional land in the National Capital Region (ex Delhi) to the market by resolving disputes over titles, thus making the land available for sale. Good news...isn't it??

The land in question does not have clear title records, because of which developers are wary of laying their hands on them. If the proposal of the Union urban development ministry’s NCR Planning Board goes through, it will release fresh supply of more than 2 million mid-segment housing units, putting a check on soaring real estate prices. The government hopes to kick off the exercise by the year-end.

The unlocking exercise will be carried out across 8 districts of Haryana — Gurgaon, Rewari, Faridabad, Sonepat, Rohtak, Panipat, Jhajjhar & Mewat; 5 districts of UP — Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Meerut, Baghpat & Gautam Budha Nagar and Alwar in Rajasthan. The government plans to take help from local bodies to identify and verify the ownership of land.
“In any large-scale transaction, the problem of ownership deed does arise at some point of time. We are trying to work out a formula. Various suggestions have come in. The exact strategy will be worked out in some time,” an urban development ministry official said.

One of the suggestions doing the rounds is of creating an ad hoc title deed in the name of the claimant to facilitate transaction with a buyer. This will be done only in cases where all authorities concerned as well as independent surveyors are convinced about the land ownership. “This should not be difficult, as in case of villages and small towns, every local person is aware of who owns which land. The only problem in some cases is that official records are not available. This exercise will help do away with this problem,” Haryana housing board chief administrator SP Gupta said.

Real estate developers operating in the area say the exercise will be a win-win situation. TDI MD Kamal Taneja said: “For developers in the NCR, land acquisition is the biggest challenge. Among whatever property comes up for consideration, only 10% get converted into a final deal. The other 90% inevitably deals with the problem of unclear titles. Obviously, the asking price for clean land is unimaginably high. This gets converted into much higher costs as far as built-up property is concerned. The only way to make real estate affordable is by creating fresh supply.”

Clear land records is of prime concern for the ministry. The department has also asked local bodies and district administrations to go in for mandatory computerisation of land records and get them duly audited to avoid litigation.

You may exchange your views on on this topic @ Real Estate Discussion Forum, which is a common platform for real estate community of India.