AHMEDABAD: If Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) were to capitalize on its current land resources in the city, it can generate Rs 3,015 crore per year — not just by sale but by simply commercializing the unused or underutilized land in the city through lease or even changing land classification, claims the latest World Bank paper authored by urban specialists Madhu Bharti and Shagun Mehrotra.
A total of about 33 square kilometers of land in Ahmedabad is public and marketable land. Of these, about onethird is vacant, owned by AMC, and located within city limits.
‘Auda got Rs 1,163 crore by selling land’
Official government records estimate the land value in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 (averaging about Rs 25,613 ) per square meter. The market value of this public urban land is about 40 to 50 per cent higher than the official estimates to Rs 3,015 crore,” claims Bharti and Mehrotra. The paper also highlights the fact that AUDA, the apex planning body for the city, has accumulated Rs 1,163 crore till March 2019 through land sale alone.
“Commercializing unused or underutilized public land through sale or lease, reclassification of land use, and enhanced density can unlock resources adequate to finance city-wide infrastructure, slum upgrading, and slum prevention,” adds Bharti.
A senior revenue department official at the Ahmedabad collectorate told TOI that not all of the approximately 6,850 hectares of land is marketable. “It should be noted that 52% of the 6.85k ha is marketable — 21% is vacant land and 31% is developed — with construction at different levels of consumed FSI.”