Chennai: Land pooling amendment to turn owners into partners in development

CHENNAI: Five years after making an announcement of  land pooling policy and preparing a draft amendment, the Tamil Nadu government on Monday passed an amendment to the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act giving sanction to land pooling or land re-adjustment wherein land can be sourced for development of industrial, transport or other infrastructure projects. The land pooling area development scheme under section 39A of the Act paves way for consolidating land for development of projects by making land-owners partners in development.

The amendment came into being after studying Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi models of land pooling.Land pooling, a more equitable scheme where landowners would become partners in the joint venture development, was announced in 2012-13, based on the Justice Mohan committee recommendation. Under the Act, individual owners’ land will be pooled together by transfer of ownership rights to appropriate planning authority, which, after being developed, is passed on to land-owners and remaining part of such land is used for establishing common facilities and amenities for sale.

Interestingly, the amendment was delayed as the new Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Act (RFCTLARR), 2013, was introduced by the Centre. The main objective of the land pooling policy is to facilitate easy availability of land for urban planning and creation of urban infrastructure with land owners as partners and not losers.