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Uttaranchal curbs on land sale

By Our Staff Correspondent

DEHRA DUN SEPT. 13. Persons from outside Uttaranchal and non-agriculturists will not be able acquire land in the State henceforth.

The Government has promulgated an ordinance to regulate the sale and purchase of agricultural land and check the activities of land mafias which had inflated land prices beyond all proportions over the past two years.

Giving out details of the ordinance, the Principal Secretary (Revenue), S. K. Das, said that from now on, only those who are registered as farmers in the revenue records of the State would be able to buy agricultural land.

Industries being set up within the purview of the Industrial Policy of the State, educational, medical, cultural and religious institutions, landless farm labourers, landless members of the scheduled castes or tribes and village artisans can buy land.

All others will have to seek the permission of the State Government by routing their applications through the district magistrate and the divisional commissioner. The ordinance also bans sale of any land on the basis of a power of attorney.

Anyone is, however, free to buy residential land or buildings sold by a development authority or corporation of the State or Central Government.

Welcoming the ordinance, a number of social activists felt that the Government should ask the development authorities, especially the Mussoorie Dehra Dun Development Authority (MDDA) to sell residential plots on a no-profit no-loss basis.

The MDDA has acquired about 450 acres of agricultural land on the Hardwar bypass at about Rs 4 lakhs a bigha and is selling the same at rates ranging from Rs 20 lakhs to Rs 25 lakhs per bigha.

"This is looting the people having money and depriving the common man of even small patches of land for building a house'', said Anand Chandola, a Government employee who has lost all hopes of building a house in Dehra Dun or any other town of Uttaranchal.

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