Middle class feels brunt of real estate boom

Mysore, May 28: The city of palaces has been developing at a rapid pace due to a boom in real estate activities eversince it was tipped to be an alternative destination to its 'rich' neighbour Bangalore, leaving the ordinary man to struggle to cope with the change.

The atmosphere witnessed in the real estate activities over the last two and half years has succeeded in pulling people from all walks of life into its bandwagon.

Upgradation of the Mysore airport and implementing of the presitigious Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project and big IT companies moving into the city have made the speculators bullish, and the demand for land for residential, commercial and industrial purposes has been ever growing.

The aggressive buying of agriculture land by private developers had stalled the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA), from developing big layouts. Though some ambitious proposals were unveiled and applications were called, it was said that the Authority was not in a position to distribute sites on a large scale.

Sources at MUDA told sources that over the last two decades, nearly 1.20 lakh people had applied for sites. Apart from this, nearly 1.17 lakh aspirants had applied last year for 15,000 sites to be developed and distributed by MUDA in new areas such as Lalithadripura, Shantaveri Gopla Gowda Nagara, Lal Bahadur Shastri Nagara and R T Nagar.

Many Housing Cooperative Societies have sprung up to meet the demands of the people, following the inability of MUDA to distribute sites.

Revenue Department sources said that nearly 100 Housing Cooperative Societies were operating in Mysore and were in the process of developing land on the outskirts.

According to the district Registrar's office, real estate activities were being witnessed in the radius of 35 km of Mysore city and was touching the taluks of Hunsur and Nanjangud in Mysore district and Srirangapatna in Mandya district.

The spurt in the registration of land had brought more revenue to the state government. The district had collected Rs 125.53 crore during 2005-06 as against the target of Rs 95 crore. It had registered Rs 75 crore during 2004-2005 Mysore North and South offices had made significant contribution to the district registrar's kitty. While Mysore South collected Rs 53.71 crore as against the target of Rs 44.50 crore, Mysore North achieved Rs 58.81 crore as against Rs 36.50 crore.

Mr Siddaraju, a promoter, said that an acre of land at Belvatta village, on the outskirts of the city, which was available for Rs ten lakh a few years ago, now fetched about Rs 60 lakh.

Similarly, at Kurubarahalli, the market price for an acre of land had spiralled to over Rs one crore from just Rs ten lakh a few years ago, he pointed out.

He said the prices for residential and commercial plots in almost all areas had inflated. In areas such as Kuvempurnagar and V V Mohalla, sellers were quoting over Rs 1,500 per sq ft. Identical growth had been witnessed in other areas, taking away the plots from the reach of middle class Mysoreans.

The failure of MUDA to swiftly react to these changes and distribute sites to the genuine and needy beneficiaries had also raised questions about its future.

At present, mushrooming of private developers and housing cooperative societies posed a new challenge before the district administration. Though rules and regulations had been framed regarding alienation of agriculture land and development of residential areas, the question doing the rounds was whether the officials would be able to prevent haphazard and uncontrolled growth of the city, especially when the growth rate was sharper than anticipated.

Even as the Sub-Registrars offices in the city continued to be mobbed for registration of properties, experts believe that it was still not too late for MUDA to act.

According to the Land Acquisition Act, MUDA had powers to issue special notifications to acquire land and the only hitch would be higher amount of compensation to land owners.

Now all eyes were set on MUDA to see whether it could face the challenge from other competitors and provide justice to the ordinary Mysoreans waiting for years for allotment of a piece of land.

UNI