Maharashtra’s repeal of the 41-year-old Urban Land Ceiling & Regulation Act (Ulcra) at the Centre?s insistence could not have come at a better time. The move will liberalise the state?s housing sector and attract more investment. It was long overdue in any case. While it was envisaged as a tool to achieve several socialist objectives, all it did was keep land away from the market and stunt the real estate sector?s development. The grotesque form visible today, with land mafias and shady practices, was at least partly a result of land laws completely out of tune with market requirements. The scrapping of the Act should reduce corruption, and allow more high rises to emerge in Mumbai. Over 30,000 acres of land will be thrown open for development in this overcrowded city, but not so quickly as to send land prices crashing. Most of this land, currently in the possession of 345 entities, will be available for housing and infrastructure projects. All these entities, trusts and companies had bumped up against Ulcra in trying to make good use of the land. The realty sector is plainly overjoyed by the news of the land?s release from the outdated Act?s clutches. The other good news is that the government proposes to impose a vacant land tax so that the land released is not left unused for very long.
The move has attracted some grumbling as well. Some ask how this move will help improve the lives of slumdwellers. Also, the ultra-localist Shiv Sena has claimed that the Congress-led state government has hatched a plot to cleave Mumbai from the rest of Maharashtra. Neither of these criticisms has validity. More efficient land use is bound to have a decongestant effect on the city overall, over time, while separate schemes to house the disadvantaged take effect. Also, an open market for land will apply to all of Maharashtra, and if post-Ulcra Mumbai becomes even more cosmopolitan, it would only be an affirmation of the positional ?centrality? the state has long claimed in its rivalry with, say, Haryana. Given the Rs 17,689 crore under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission that the state is entitled to from the Centre, now that Ulcra has been repealed well before the March 2008 deadline New Delhi had set, one can truly hope that the urbanscape of Maharashtra gets a quick facelift. It is badly needed.
