In an attempt to speed up the execution of the pilot project of Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area (NAINA), the state government has decided to defer the betterment charges. Now, the charges will be borne by the end-users or the home buyer in the future. Farmers were opposing the high betterment charges and were not ready to participate in NAINA.
NAINA is a participatory land pooling scheme where villagers will get 40 percent of the developed land of the total land they will surrender to develop NAINA city in the Raigad district. At present, CIDCO which is the planning authority for NAINA is executing a pilot project, consisting of 23 villages in the Raigad district.
Prakash Baviskar, president of NAINA Builders Welfare Association (NBWA) and general secretary of Marathi Bandhkam Vyavsayik Association (MBVA) welcomed the decision and termed it would expedite the execution of NAINA. “Both Minister of Urban Development Eknath Shinde and CIDCO Dr Sanjay Mukherjee have taken developers' and farmers' concerns seriously and deferred the betterment charges in NAINA,” said Baviskar.
However, he added that the decision will not benefit the homebuyers as ultimately the high betterment charges will have to be borne by end users. “The decision is certainly good for farmers as they can pool land easily,” said Baviskar, adding that the state government should either bring down the betterment charges or find other ways to compensate for this by selling developed land at a later stage.
Earlier, Villagers under the banner of NAINA Project Affected Farmers Utkarsh Samiti (NPAFUS) held a meeting in Panvel taluka and decided to intensify their demand. Vaman Shelke, a member of NPAFUS says that as per the sanctioned draft scheme of NAINA, every landowner included in the scheme shall get a net of 40% of developed land. However, farmers were opposing this. “There was a high development and betterment charges in NAINA,” said Shelke. According to villagers, the betterment charge is around Rs 3.5 lakh for one Guntha or 1090 sq feet development. “If the villagers get 10 Guntha developed land after surrendering 25 Guntha land, he will have to pay Rs 35 lakh for betterment charge for 10 guntha developed land,” said Shelke. However, now, villagers will not have to pay the betterment charges.
