Mumbai: The Federation of Grantees of Government Land (FGGL) is feeling let down by the state government. The Federation has been campaigning for a five percent premium to convert government land allotted to cooperative housing societies into freehold land for the past several years.
After a prolonged struggle, leaders of the Federation held a meeting with the revenue minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil in the chamber of the Speaker of the legislative assembly Rahul Narvekar a few weeks ago wherein the minister promised to positively consider their demand within a month.
Shocker!
However, now the government has come out with a shocker as per which the five per cent premium will be charged only in cases where cooperative housing societies undertake redevelopment of their buildings.
According to Salil Ramachandra, Federation president, “Self-development is not a practical proposition. Out of thousands of cooperative housing societies only about 100 have gone in for self-development and not all of them have been successful.”
Hurdles
Self-development is not possible because of lack of mutual trust in many Societies. Also, many of the members of these societies are retired persons who do not have the energy and capacity to go in for redevelopment. Arranging for finance, getting the building plans approved, appointing a contractor to demolish and build a new structure and to supervise the construction etc involve a lot of work and expertise, which most societies lack.
Hence, the Federation has urged the government to remove the self-development condition while charging a five percent premium.
