Gfiles February 2014

PETITION IN PUBLIC INTEREST SUBMITTED TO THE HON’BLE SUPREME
COURT BY GFILES REGARDING THE GREAT LAND ROBBERY IN HARYANA.
HOW HOODA ALONG WITH HIS CRONIES PLUNDERED HARYANA IN HIS
9 YEARS OF RULE. p10
February 10, 2014 `
VOL. 7, ISSUE 11
JAPAN

ABEPLOMACY
JEFF KINGSTON
p76

gfilesindia.com

Haryana’s
Venod Sharma

Kunal Bhadoo

Congress MLA, Ambala

Hooda’s son-in-law

KP Singh

Owner, BPTP

Owner, DLF

Chief
Ministers?

Sameer Gehlaut

Arvind Walia

Anil Bhalla

Owner, Indiabulls

Owner, Ramprastha

Owner, Vatika Builders

M
G
RA DE
CE VA
FO SA
R HA
PM Y
A

p6 M
8

Kabul Chawla

De facto

Regn.No.DL(C)-14/1161/2013-15 Licence No. U(C)-03/2013-15,
Licence to post without prepayment Posted on 7th & 8th of every month at SPM SRT Nagar,
Post Office, New Delhi 110055 R.N.I. No: DELENG/2007/19719.
Rs`200, vol. 7, issue 11 | Date of Publication: 10/2/2014

gfiles Regd. Address: 118, 2nd Floor, DDA Site 1, New Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi – 110 060

From the Editor

I

vol. 7,

ISSUE 11 | FEBRUARY 2014

Anil Tyagi | editor
TR Ramachandran | executive editor
Niranjan Desai | roving editor
GS Sood | consulting business editor
Rakesh Bhardwaj | editorial consultant
Arvind Tiwari | director, business development
Naresh Minocha | associate editor
Neeraj Mahajan | associate editor
Alok Jain | coordinator (maharashtra)
Ajit Ujjainkar | bureau chief (mumbai)
Harishchandra Bhat | associate editor (bengaluru)
Venugopalan | bureau chief (bengaluru)
Kanika Srivastava | editorial coordinator
Mayank Awasthi | reporter
Pawan Kumar | production coordinator
Sumer Singh | assistant manager, logistics
Nipun Jain | finance
Gautam Das | legal consultant
Crossmedia Solutions | edit & design
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+All information in gfiles is obtained from sources that the
management considers reliable, and is disseminated to readers
without any responsibility on our part. Any opinions or views
on any contemporary or past topics, issues or developments
expressed by third parties, whether in abstract or in interviews,
are not necessarily shared by us. Copyright exclusively with
Sarvashrestha Media Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved throughout
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the right to refuse, withdraw or otherwise deal with any
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comply with the Indian Advertisements Code. Published and
printed by Anil Tyagi on behalf of Sarvashrestha Media Pvt. Ltd
at Kala Jyothi Process Pvt Ltd. E-125, Site-B, Surajpur Ind. Area,
Gautam Budh Nagar, Greater Noida-201306 U.P. (INDIA). All
disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent
courts in New Delhi only

T was March 2013, when Chhattar Singh, Principal Secretary
(PS) to the Chief Minister of Haryana was about to retire and the
new incumbent had to be selected. There were many officers
in line. At the time, I met one of the senior-most officers, who too desired the
prestigious post. We discussed the possibilities about who would be selected by
Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the Chief Minister of Haryana. In the discussion, he said
that the selection required the tacit consent of Venod Sharma, the controversial
Congress MLA and liquor baron. I was taken aback. He further said that not only
Venod Sharma, but the PS to CM also needed the backing of the influential builder
lobby of Haryana. As a journalist, this was the first clue to the Cover Story that
we carry in this issue. I sensed a big scam. Following this conversation, I toured
the State many times and met a lot of leaders, officers and common people. The
story built up slowly. What our Associate Editor Neeraj Mahajan unravelled was
shocking—a complete surrender of the State administrative machinery before
the almighty builder mafia. I have been covering Haryana for the last 31 years
and in my experience, no Chief Minister had ever been influenced by an extraconstitutional authority in the selection of a PS in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.
Not only the PS, but also the District Collectors (DC) and Superintendent of Police
(SP) have always been the personal choice of the Chief Minister.
Venod Sharma; Kunal Bhadoo, Hooda’s son-in-law; Kabul Chawla, businessman and close associate of Hooda; Anil Bhalla, CMD Vatika Group; Arvind Walia,
owner of Ramprastha Developers Pvt Ltd; KP Singh, DLF Chairman; and, Sameer
Gehlaut of Indiabulls were the names that figured prominently in the search for
the story. Senior officers confided that nothing moved without their go-ahead.
According to the whispers, they are the de facto chief ministers of Haryana.
The State has approximately 200 builders, who are constructing the so-called
modern Haryana. It is astonishing that these 200 builders have around 20,000
companies registered with the Registrar of Companies. How the web of these
companies is allegedly converting huge amounts of black money into white and
vice versa, is a matter that needs further investigation.
In the early 1990s, the Delhi Lease and Finance Company (DLF) started developing some patches of land in Gurgaon, but it was on a very small scale. Getting
licences and acquiring land was a tough task as the land-owning community was
not willing to surrender the land for private colonisation. So, DLF first used to
buy the land from farmers and then allegedly KP Singh personally used to meet
the Chief Minister for change of land use (CLU). All the Lals (Bansi, Bhajan and
Devi) of Haryana were clued into the sentiments of the masses. But, a new era
of State planning surfaced with Bhupinder Singh Hooda coming to power. It is
for the architectural institutes, administrators and town planners to study how
a city can be planned without water, electricity, roads or other public amenities.
The clearance of 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in real estate by the
Manmohan Singh government opened up the Pandora’s Box in Haryana. Today,
the real estate sector in Haryana presents an ugly state of affairs—unorganised
and unprotected labour working on haphazard and hurriedly constructed castles.
Hooda’s vision of development in Haryana includes almost everyone who can
enrich him, his friends and families, ignoring the people of the State. gfiles is
taking the cause before the Hon’ble Supreme Court as a public interest initiative,
to decide what a citizen of a State should do when the State administrative
machinery becomes subservient to extra-constitutional authorities.
ANIL TYAGI

Download the gfiles app

www.indianbuzz.com

editor@gfilesindia.com

gfiles inside the government

vol. 7, issue 11 | February 2014

3

CONTENTS
6 Bric-a-Brac

LETTERS
editor@gfilesindia.com

36

JIG
I
CA NES NSI
T H, GH
OF F T
AL ATT
L ES
p

10 Petition in Public Interest
THE GREAT LAND ROBBERY

T

posts & hosts

MG DEVASAHAYAM HOODA SELLING HARYANA
TO BUILDERS p26

January 5, 2014 `
VOL. 7, ISSUE 10
OM NARAIN VAID

STARGAZER
FIRST STIRRINGS
p42

gfilesindia.com

Fading
Halo

62 Politics
68 Governance
72
76 Global Scan
81 Book Review
82 My Corner
84 Silly Point
87 Stock Doctor
88 Exhibition
96 Perspective
97 By the Way

4


It is more or less clear from the current
scenario and the results of the elections
of five states that the ruling party’s rule
would probably come to an end.
Although speeches and political rallies
by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi
is not creating any place in the hearts
and minds of the common people.
Subramanium (‘Diminishing returns from
dynasty’, gfiles, January 2014) has done
an excellent analysis of what all is currently going on inside and outside the
Congress. It shows that, by just belonging to the first family, Rahul cannot
impact the public without proving himself practically.
A K Saxena on blog
K Subramaniam has rightly said Congress
Vice-President Rahul Gandhi is no game
changer. I just want to add one or two
things. Rahul in his first TV interview was
looking confused and directionless. After
watching the interview it was saddening
but he doesn’t bear any quality of a leader who can take a stand. I think the
Congress think-tank has realised that
Rahul baba can’t be a match winner for
the Congress and that’s why after so
many strong predictions, he has not been
nominated as the prime ministerial can-

didate. I think the recent assembly elections should be a lesson for Congressmen
and they better pull up their socks before
the general elections.
R Sharma via email

This is not the first time when an Indian
has been treated in a highhanded manner
by the US. I must say that the incidences
covered by the writer Niranjan Desai (‘Give
what you get’, gfiles, January 2014) give us
complete overview of the image of India in
the eyes of the US. This is a matter of self
respect and self-esteem on both the
national and international stage, that how
Indians are being treated by other countries. By compiling previous such incidences, not only between India and US, but
also with Brazil, Nigeria, UK, the writer has
made an extraordinary effort to highlight
such incidences and urge the higher
authorities to take stringent steps.
Madan Lal on blog

I am not at all satisfied with the way
Kejriwal is working. Kejriwal has confessed that he intends to bring anarchy in
India. Besides showing a way to others
and being set as an example, he is
destroying the pattern of governance!
What is his mission? Does he want to
destabilise India? If yes, who sponsors
him financially? Being a bureaucrat, he is
expected to be extremely talented, but his
decisions are worrying Delhiites!
John on blog

It is absolutely true that the first information report by the citizenry does not get its
desired way. The writer has well explained
the word ‘burking’ in his own way with the
practical experiences of his life which also
gives a clear message to the Indian police
to stop burking and let the common man
walk on the right track to get justice.
Shruti Goel via email

www.gfilesindia.com

www.indianbuzz.com



5

Bric-a-brac
posts & hosts

Wooing the media
freebies, high posts and
even marriage

I

F one desires to enter politics or get married, the easiest
way apparently is to join a newspaper or TV organisation. It is well known that media management has
become a tough job for political parties and its leaders. The
media fraternity also knows that every party needs them
desperately to reach to the masses. Top political parties are
wooing journalists by distributing all kind of freebies. Some
Chief Ministers are distributing free houses, cars and highend telephones. The new rage is to appoint journalist at
constitutional posts. Mulayam Singh Yadav has appointed

Amethi bulletin

sanjay singh cynosure of all

T

HE parliamentary constituency of Amethi has
been continuously in the news for the last 3O
years as Sanjay Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul
Gandhi have been contesting from this seat for the
Congress. This seat has some sort of magic; whosoever
plans to contest from this seat becomes popular
across the country overnight. Aam Aadmi
Party candidate Kumar Vishwas’
candidature has created a furore
among Congress Party officials.
It was more so because Sanjay
Singh, a strong Thakur leader
of UP and MP from Sultanpur,
planned to desert the Congress
Party at a time when the party is
fighting its battle for survival. For
so many years, Sanjay Singh has

6


four journalists as information commissioners. One of
them is his son Prateek Yadav’s father-in-law, Arvind
Singh Bisht, a retired journalist from The Times of
India. The others are Raj Keshar of Dainik
Jagran, Delhi; Sudesh Kumar of Dainik Jagran,
Lucknow; and Vijay Sharma of Charchit Rajneeti,
Lucknow. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh
Hooda has also appointed three journalists as information
commissioners in the state. Sukhbir Singh Badal has
similarly obliged. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar
has nominated Harivansh, a veteran journalist, for
Rajya Sabha. One should not be surprised
that the Aam Aadmi Party’s nickname in
Delhi is “Media Party”. Except for Arvind
Kejriwal, most of the leaders, be it Manish Sisodia,
Yogendra Yadav, or Ashutosh, are in one way or the
other connected to the media. It is also learnt that one of
the channel heads has been offered the South Mumbai seat
by a national party. It is interesting to observe many politicians have married TV journalists in the last five years. A
young and prominent Chief Minister of North India is
reportedly having an affair with a renowned TV anchor.
But, things got a bit sour when an MP from Bihar proposed
to an agency reporter; the young lady just smiled and
moved away to do her professional duty.

g

been completely neglected by the party. He used
to wonder what happened to the party, where the
facilitators of major industrial houses have become
ministers and political leaders are being ignored.
The moment the Congress realised that winning
Amethi will be difficult without the active support
of Thakur of Amethi, everybody in the party
started talking to him. Singh is well-connected
in every political party, BJP’s top brass too,
has been in touch with him. The
only way to stop Sanjay from
joining the BJP, would be with an
assurance of a settled political
career. Finally, the Thakur got
a Rajya Sabha nomination from
Assam which has assured him
political stability for six years. It
is yet to be seen if Sanjay will be
given some important job in UP
or not.

g

www.gfilesindia.com

INSIDE EYE

ILLUSTRATIONS: ARUNA

Ticket to ride
getting a parliament car pass

M

INISTERS and Members of Parliament are
perpetually in a state of being temporary. Their
entrance to the Parliament is restricted by
passes issued for parking their vehicles. The 15th
Lok Sabha had 15 sessions in five years. The MPs
never faced any problem in entering the house. So,
the Parliament Security was in a fix whether to
issue the car passes for the current year to the
present MPs or not. Technically, the term of the
Parliament is over after the second session. In such
a scenario, if the Parliament Security issues the
passes for 2014 to the current MPs and they do not
win seats in the forthcoming elections, how can the
security stop their entry. Parliament Security were
finally able to get a solution as the new Prime
Minister has to be elected on or before May 21, 2014
and the results of the 16th Lok Sabha will be
finalised by May 15, 2014. After calculating the
dates, Parliament Security officials have issued car

www.indianbuzz.com

passes to the sitting MPs which are valid till May 15, 2014. The
happiest lot are the ex-MPs, who have got their yearly pass on
time. There are ex-MPs who have been voted out for the last
30 years but are still entitled to an entry whereas the senior
officials who are working in the Parliament for last 30 years
are not allowed with their personal vehicles; they have to park
in Parliament Annexe.

g



7

Bric-a-brac
posts & hosts

A Prime Ministerial debate
trade, media to ask the questions

A

businessman seldom leaves an opportunity to
approach the political party in power. The 16th
Lok Sabha Elections are on and nobody knows
who will be the next Prime Minister of India. It is
a rare occurrence that no one knows who to
bank on. Trade associations are active to
grab any opportunity to introduce Prime
Ministerial candidates to their influential
top business personalities. Prime
Ministerial candidates are also happy to
meet them before the elections for
obvious reasons. One of the top
prominent trade associations has
finalised ten candidates for a round table
discussion before the elections. It is going
to be an interesting debate with not only
by business personalities but media as
well. The prominent prime ministerial
candidates are Narendra Modi, Rahul
Gandhi, Navin Patnaik, Nitish Kumar,
Jayalalitha, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj,
Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and
Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who have been
invited for the discussion. When gfiles
asked one of the chief members of the
trade association, what was planned in
case none of the candidates became
the PM, he did not have an answer.

g

8


www.gfilesindia.com

www.indianbuzz.com



9

PETITION IN PUBLIC INTEREST

haryana real estate

THE GREAT

Haryana is not a state,
it is real estate
by ANIL TYAGI
“We must speak up irrespective
of whether it will have its desired
effects or not, because by speaking
up we may not guarantee raising
the consciousness of the people who
listen but by not speaking up we will
definitely let the people to remain
deaf and dumb”.
When in 2004, the citizens of
Haryana elected Bhupinder Singh
Hooda first time as their Chief
Minister, they must have thought

10


that the monopoly of Lals (Devi Lal,
Bhajan Lal and Bansi Lal) will be over.
They had breathed a sigh of relief and
posed faith in the new leadership of
Hooda. Alas! Hooda, alias Bhupi, has
belied their hopes and aspirations.
Hooda, in his nine years of rule, has
emerged as a coloniser, builder and
a shrewd businessman who worked
only to serve the interest of the elitist
class of the country rather than to
serve the citizens of Haryana. It is
an astonishing scenario where a
Chief Minister, who has been elected

as a protector and guarantor of
a sovereign State in the federal
structure of India, allegedly became
the plunderer of the State resources.
The land, which is the prime source of
existence of the farmer in the State, is
in the hands of such a Chief Minister,
who joined hands with greedy
plunderers of the State who have
nothing to do with the development
of the Haryana and Haryanvis; their
main aim is to make a quick buck in
the shortest possible time.
Haryana’s state of affairs is a

www.gfilesindia.com

LAND ROBBERY
colonisers. Hooda’s rule is a sordid
saga where, in all 21 districts of the
State the rules have been amended,
master plans have been malafidely
drafted and environmental and ecological laws thrown into the dustbin
at the behest of the builders’ mafia,
with the connivance of the political
and administrative machinery.
Land is the one resource which
cannot be stretched. The population
of India is growing every day. India
has to debate how an elected Chief
Minister, legislators and the State
administrative machinery should
utilise the State’s resources only for
the welfare of the State and nobody
else. India has to debate how a Chief
Minister can dare to connive with the

PHOTOS: RAJEEV TYAGI

bizarre example of administrative,
political and economic mismanagement, where the whole administrative machinery connived and surrendered to serve the builder mafia
rather than to serve the poor and the
poorest of the State. Like plunderers
of yore, Genghis Khan and Mahmud
of Ghazni, Hooda, the Chief Minister
elected for five years planned and
designed the Master Plan for the next
50 years, that too without consulting
the stakeholders within the State.
Haryana is a peculiar State where
farmers, land owners, communities and city residents have been
coerced to surrender the precious
land—which
they
owned for generations—
under the guise of the Land
Acquisition Act to greedy

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builder mafia to implement the
Master Plan and forcibly take away
farmers’ land without consultation
with the stakeholders in that particular district. Hooda never bothered to
consult the panchayats, block pramukhs, zila parishads, local MLAs
and municipalities in nine years as
the Chief Minister. He seems to have
defied all the parameters that define
a democratic State.
Our Associate Editor, Neeraj
Mahajan, after three months of
investigation, has unearthed the
allegedly unholy nexus of Chief
Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda,
his coterie, and the builder mafia in
a detailed public interest initiative,
submitted to the Hon’ble Supreme
Court. It explains how a Chief
Minister can become a despotic ruler
rather than messiah. gfiles, in its
endeavour, has spared 50 pages of
the magazine, which no publication
dares to do for one story. In the
forthcoming issues, we will expose
how individual builders and some
of the billionaire MLAs of Haryana
are making castles without proper
mechanism and infrastructure,
just to befool the poor man, who is
dreaming about having a roof over
his head one day with his
hard-earned money. g



11


haryana real estate

A Petition In The Public Interest
W.P No……..of 2014
THE HON’BLE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA, NEW DELHI
(Extraordinary Writ Jurisdiction)

In the matter of:
gfiles : A magazine on governance
(Regd.No.DL Eng/2007/19719)
118, IInd Floor, DDA Site-I,
New Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi – 110060
VERSUS
1. Bhupinder Singh Hooda,
Chief Minister of Haryana
2.

3.

4.

12

Secretary, Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Room No. 46, North Block
New Delhi - 110 001
Ministry of Environment & Forests
Government of India
Paryavaran Bhavan
CGO Complex, Lodhi Road
New Delhi-110003
Ministry of Urban Development
Government of India
Through: National Capital Region Planning
Board, Core-IV B, First Floor
India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road
New Delhi-110003


…. Petitioner
5.

Department of Town & Country Planning
& Urban Estate
Government of Haryana
4th Floor, Haryana Civil secretariat
Chandigarh

6.

Department of Labour
Government of Haryana,
30 Bays Building, Sector 17, Chandigarh - 160
017

7.

Ministry of Forests & Environment
Government of Haryana
Room No. 34, 8th Floor
Haryana Civil Secretariat
Chandigarh

……..Respondents

www.gfilesindia.com

(Any other Ministry, Departments, organisations and
individuals as will be deemed just and appropriate to be
made as parties with the permission of this Hon’ble Court)
MOST RESPECTFULLY SHOWETH:
Court by way of the present writ petition for public
interest by invoking the extraordinary writ jurisdiction
of this Hon’ble Court with a prayer, as mentioned in the
prayer clause, to decide once and for all whether people
sitting in the government, or in other words, State can
arbitrarily decide the use of land resources, especially in
view of the fact that mass scale favouritism and misuse
of land to benefit a handful of powerful coterie and that
too in flagrant violation of all existing environmental
and other laws, rules and regulations made therein to
protect the control of land uses and to avoid any
haphazard development of land and ecological
disturbances and for matters connected therewith.

respect seem to have no effect on the present day
Haryana Government. In one of the much discussed
judgements, the Hon’ble Justice GS Singhvi held that:
The framers of the Constitution and the representative
of the people who were responsible for introducing Part
IV-A enacted the above provisions with a fond hope
that every citizen will honestly play his role in building
of a homogeneous society in which every Indian will be
able to live with dignity without having to bother about
the basics, like food, clothing, shelter, education,

www.indianbuzz.com

Haryana Government’s Labour Department turns a blind
eye to lack of safety norms for workers (above); new
housing colonies are being built but without water
supply (left)

medical aid, and the nation will constantly march
forward and will take its place of pride in the comity of
nations. However, what has happened during the last
few decades is sufficient to shatter those hopes. The
gap between ‘haves’ and ‘haves-not’ of the society,
which existed even in pre-Independent India, has
widened to such an extent that bridging it appears to be
an impossibility. A new creed of people (haves) has
come into existence. Those belonging to this category
have developed a new value system which is totally
incompatible with the values and ideals cherished by
the Indian society for centuries together. They have
grabbed power, political and apolitical, and have
successfully used the public institutions to subserve
their ends. The system of quotas, licences, permits, etc.,
has been used and misused by them for increasing their
material wealth. Their actions have created an
atmosphere of diffidence in all walks of life. The
common man has started feeling that this new creed of
people, who believe in grabbing whatever comes its
way, is unstoppable and the law will also become its
servant because quite a few people belonging to this
class are creators and administrators of law. However,
it appears that every thing is not lost. The third organ of
the State, whose primary duty has been to interpret the
Constitution and the provisions of law and to adjudicate
PPI contd. on next page



13


haryana real estate

the disputes between the individual (s) and the State
and between individuals inter se, or groups of
individual, has been forced by the people and the
circumstances to take steps to uphold the majesty of
law and the authority of the Constitution.
Secretary, JDA vs Daulat Mal Jain, JT 1996(8) SC
387, the Apex Court had the occasion to examine
allotment of lands to the respondents by the Minister
and the committee headed by the Minister. Some of
the observations made in that decision are quite relevant
in the context of the present case and are therefore,
quoted below:
“... The Minister holds public office though he gets
constitutional status and performs functions under
constitution, law executive policy. The acts done and
duties performed are public acts or duties as holding
of the public office. Therefore, he owes certain
accountability for the acts done or duties performed.
In a democratic society governed by rule of law,
power is conferred on the holder of the public office
or the concerned authority by the Constitution by
Haphazard construction has created havoc all around

14


virtue of appointment. The holder of the office,
therefore, gets opportunity to abuse or misuse of the
office. The politician who holds public office must
perform public duties with the sense of purpose, and
a sense of direction, under rules or sense of priorities.
The purpose must be genuine in a free democratic
society governed by the rule of law to further socioeconomic democracy. The executive Government
should frame its policies to maintain the social order,
stability, progress and morality. All actions of the
Government are performed through/by individual
persons in collective or joint or individual capacity.
Therefore, they should morally be responsible for
their actions.... The Minister is responsible not only
for his actions but also for the job of the bureaucrats
who work or have worked under him. He owes the
responsibility to the electors for all his actions taken
in the name of the Governor in relation to the
Department of which he is the Head. If the Minister,
in fact, is responsible for all the detailed working of
his
Department,
then
clearly
ministerial
responsibility must cover a wider spectrum than
mere moral responsibility; for no minister can
possibly get acquainted with; all the detailed

www.gfilesindia.com

decisions involved in the working of his
Department.... The so-called public policy cannot be
a camouflage for abuse of the power and trust
entrusted with a public authority or public servant
for the performance of public duties. Misuse implies
doing of something improper. The essence of
impropriety is replacement of a public motive for a
private one. When satisfaction sought in the
performance of duties is for mutual personal gain,
the misuse is usually termed as corruption. The
holder of a public office is said to have misused his
position when in pursuit of a private satisfaction, as
distinguished from public interest, he has done
something which he ought not to have done. The
most elementary qualification demanded of a
Minister is honesty and incorruptibility. He should
not only possess these qualifications but should also
appear to possess the same.”

well known, has been rapidly converted into jungle of
concrete, taking a heavy toll on existing flora and fauna
of the State and damaging its reputation of being the
food bowl of the country.

his tenure, kept all the important departments
relating to land and urban development under his
control with the sole motive of taking unilateral
decisions regarding sale and allotment of land to a select

www.indianbuzz.com

Most favoured, BPTP’s gateway to billions

few favourite individuals and groups, turning them
billionaires overnight at the cost of poor Haryanvis.

changed, altered or modified with the motive of
favouring a select group of builders close to the Chief
Minister and its coterie, benefiting both with complete
disregard to systemic planning and the basic laws of
equity. So much so that three Master Plans were created
in haste, including Master Plan 2031, assuming that the
same government will continue for decades to come.

politicians and others to seek political and other favours
i.e. Quid pro quo.

changed midway to safeguard commercial interest of
some favoured builders with complete disregard to the
cost and loss of revenue to the State exchequer.

Government are allegedly influenced by a select
coterie, comprising of influential politicians, builders
and business mafia, including Venod Sharma, Kunal
Badoo, Arvind Walia, Anil Sharma, Kabul Chawla and
Sameer Gehlaut.



15


haryana real estate

Men in shadows:
Those who pull the
political strings
by NEERAJ MAHARAJ

I

T would be difficult to imagine even
a legend like Sachin Tendulkar
single-handedly batting, bowling
and keeping the field all by himself.
Likewise, try as much as she might,
singing sensation Lata Mangeshkar
too would find it difficult to write
the lyrics, compose, direct the music,
coordinate, sing and play all the

16


musical instruments all by herself. It
is next to impossible to imagine that
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder
Singh Hooda is managing the whole
show all by himself.
As far as taking important decisions
and deciding the policy on real estate is
concerned, Hooda allegedly depends
on his son-in-law Kunal Bhadoo, DLF
strongman KP Singh, former Union
minister Venod Sharma, entrepre-

neur Jawahar Goel (Dish TV, Essel
Group of Companies), Kabul Chawla
(promoter of BPTP), Arvind Walia
(Director, Ramprastha Group), Sushil
Ansal (Promoter of Ansal Group),
Sameer Gehlaut (Indiabulls) as well
as Anil and Gautam Bhalla of Vatika
Ltd. Call it a high-power committee,
think-tank or a more informal kitchen
cabinet, they are the ones who allegedly decide most actions concerning the

www.gfilesindia.com

MNC offices on Delhi-Jaipur
highway are edifices to lure
innocent customers

GURGAON-MANESAR URBAN COMPLEX
Land use

Residential

Master plan
2021
Area in
hectares
14,930

Master plan
2025
Area in
hectares
15,148

Master plan
2031
Area in
hectares
16,010

Commercial

1,404

1,429

1,616

Industrial

5,441

5,431

4,613

Transport and
communication
Public utilities

4,231

4,289

4,420

564

609

626

Institutional Public
and semi-public use
Open spaces

1,630

1,775

2,035

2,675

2,688

2,775

Special zone

106

106

114

Defence land

633

633

633

31,614

32,108

32,842

Total land
Special Economic Zone

4,570

4,570

Existing town

406

406

406

Village abadis

428

428

478

37,069

37,512

33,726

Grand total

Source: Town and Country Planning, Haryana

www.indianbuzz.com

real estate sector in the State. In other
words, one may say that these are the
people who are allegedly helping, rather driving, Hooda to ruin Haryana.

A

PART from them, IAS officers
like the on-deputation 1996
batch Karnataka cadre IAS
officer Rajender Kumar Kataria, the
son-in-law of Haryana Congress president Phool Chand Mullana, former
Haryana additional advocate general
and advocate Sunil Parti, hotelier
Kewal Dhingra and foot soldiers like
Hooda’s officer on special duty, M S
Chopra, fill in the blanks.
A former Army Officer, Kushal Pal
Singh, the son-in-law of DLF Group
founder, is allegedly a master in
the art of give and take and political
arm-twisting for strategic business



17


haryana real estate

T

The BPTP and DLF saga

HE biggest beneficiary of the Hooda rule is none
other than Business Park Town Planners Limited, also
known as BPTP, promoted by Kabul Chawla, Punam
(mother of Kabul Chawla) and Anjali Chawla (wife of Kabul
Chawla). Incorporated under the Companies Act on August
11, 2003, BPTP has a number of companies, like Countrywide
Promoters Pvt Ltd, Countrywide Home and Farms Pvt Ltd,
Glitz Builders & Promoters Pvt Ltd, Foliage Construction
Pvt Ltd, Five Star Promoters Pvt Ltd, Vital Construction
Pvt Ltd, Native Buildcon Pvt Ltd, Green Valley Towers Pvt
Ltd, Anupam Towers Pvt Ltd, Sunglow Overseas Pvt Ltd,
Druzba Overseas Pvt Ltd, Business Park Promoters Pvt Ltd,
Fragrance Construction Pvt Ltd, KA Promoters & Developers
Pvt Ltd, Westland Developers Pvt Ltd, Poonam Promoters &
Developers Pvt Ltd and Vasundra Promoters Pvt Ltd.
BPTP was an unknown and insignificant player till
2005. After Hooda became the Chief Minister, its fortunes
changed, almost overnight in 2005, and the company started
aggressively staking claim over prime land in and around
Faridabad. In just three years, it had acquired licenses
to develop 283.88 acres land at unheard of rock bottom
prices—`210 per sq ft—in Faridabad. The company starting
selling the first of its plots in 2006 and by 2009 it had sold
approximately 5,657 residential plots, 10,685 apartments,
463 commercial plots and other commercial space.
In January 2009, when the Hooda Government permitted
registration of independent floors on residential plots,
BPTP took full advantage and re-aligned its business from
plotted housing to independent floors. This proved to be

advantage. He knows how to subtly
manage his strengths and weaknesses
and gain business mileage. This is
the least you can expect from a man
who managed to leverage a chance
meeting with Rajiv Gandhi to gain
virtual monopoly in Gurgaon. At least,
you can say, he was shrewd and bold
enough to move in an unchartered
direction. Not many would have dared
to do what he did… even today he is
mentally just as sharp in spotting an
opportunity and going all out to grab it
as if there is going to be no tomorrow.

18


W

a bestselling offer as almost all the 4,997 three bedroom
units in its newly launched ‘Park Elite Floors’ were sold
out in five months—between May and September 2009.
Even the 2nd phase of Park Elite Floors was sold by
September 30, 2009, and BPTP was able to mop up nearly
`2.41 billion from the market.
Today, with licenses for close to 1,606 acre land in

Two to tango: The BPTP couple

ITHIN the group, apart from
son-in-law Kunal Bhadoo,
Hooda depends most on the
controversial Congress leader from
Chandigarh, Venod Sharma, known
for his troubleshooting and negotiating skills. A former Union and State
minister, Sharma had to quit the
Power Ministry after embarrassing
public disclosures about him trying to
bribe three witnesses in the Jessica Lal
case, in which his son Manu Sharma
was the key accused. Even though
Venod Sharma, who is also related to

Haryana assembly speaker Kuldeep
Sharma (his daughter Aishwarya is
married to Venod Sharma’s youngest
son Kartikeya), seemingly remained
out of the power circuit, he is one of
those who challenge their luck to the
limit. That is why despite being out
of power, he enjoys such clout that in
informal conversations he is reportedly referred to as “Mr 10 Crore” in
real estate circles. The reason is fairly
obvious—no big land deal is possible
in the State without his direct or indirect involvement.

www.gfilesindia.com

Faridabad and Gurgaon, Countrywide
Promoters, or BPTP, is way ahead of
even Ansal Properties & Infrastructure
(1,360 acres), or DLF (939 acres). It
is so powerful that it virtually runs a
parallel government, at least as far as
Faridabad and Gurgaon are concerned.
No government official reportedly
dares to come in its way. Some say
Hooda himself is a benami owner
in the company, which is currently
KP Singh
developing 24 group housing, IT and
residential projects in Faridabad and Gurgaon.
The company’s biggest strength is that the average cost
of its land reserve is as low as `188 per sq ft. This allows it
to sell properties at relatively attractive prices and, in fact,
is the reason behind its phenomenal success in a relatively
short time-span. Such is BPTP’s clout that despite a complaint by the owner of a 14.793 acres land in Sector 106 in
Gurgaon to the Haryana TCP not to issue the license till the
agreed sale price was paid, the TCP department not only
awarded but also renewed the licenses despite the fact
that BPTP still does not have possession of the land, or has
begun any construction activity.
One of the first developers to focus on Faridabad,
Countrywide Promoters has the ability to identify suitable
land, acquire and consolidate it. This role is played by an
in-house research team of 30 personnel that gathers market
data, assesses the potential of a location, and evaluates its
demographic profile as well as government schemes and
incentives, as applicable.

One of the richest politicians
in the state, Sharma’s `500-crore
empire consists of Piccadily Group of
Industries, 4-star Piccadily Hotel in
Sector 22, Blue Ice bar in Sector 17,
chain of hotels, restaurants, cinema
theatre, sugar mills, distilleries like
Piccadily Sugar Industries, Piccadily
Agro Industries, Shakti Fibres,
Piccadily Holiday Resorts and Lyons
Restaurant, besides a number of commercial and residential properties in
Chandigarh.
He has big stakes in the liquor trade

www.indianbuzz.com

DLF holds the largest land
bank of 10,255 acres (42 sq km),
including 3,000 acres (12 sq km)
that has been developed and
1,000 acres under development in
Gurgaon. DLF Limited is the largest
commercial real estate developer
in India by revenue, profit, and
market share. DLF is so powerful
that no government in Haryana
can chose to ignore it. Whatever it
wants is reportedly given.
gfiles investigations reveal that all almost all proposals for grant of licenses are directly approved by the Chief
Minister himself, often overruling senior officials to benefit
a particular builder. Significantly, within two years of his
chief ministership, on December 19, 2006, Hooda changed
the policy for grant of license and change of land use with
retrospective effect—from June 7, 2005. By specifically stating that “the licenses shall be granted/refused by the DTCP
with prior internal concurrence of the State Government at
the Minister’s Level”, this ensured that Hooda—who was
the housing minister as well as Chairman TCP and HUDA—
was the ultimate authority to sanction or deny a license.
Even if the Director, Town Planning, wanted to grant or deny
a license, he needed to get the Chief Minister’s concurrence.
This, in effect, sealed the fate of all cooperatives housing,
giving a free hand to group housing societies and builders.
This policy also relaxed the norms for change of land use
and discontinued grant of licenses for cooperative housing
societies, even in low potential zones.

in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar
Pradesh. It is alleged that Hooda is a
shareholder in Sharma’s hotels, sugar
and construction business.

S

ON of liquor baron and onetime President of Punjab
Pradesh Congress Committee,
Kidarnath Sharma, Venod Sharma
has a good network in the Brahmin,
Aggarwal, Rajput and Punjabi communities in Haryana. Hooda has many
reasons to rely on his school-time
friend. As the head of the 40-mem-

ber election campaign committee,
Sharma’s backroom organising skills
helped Hooda muster the support
of 53 members in the 90-member
house when the Congress had just
40 members in the last elections.
Sharma always stood by him—even
when Hooda was an aspiring politician from Rohtak. On his part, Hooda
too lobbied to get Sharma the Ambala
Assembly ticket when he was a political untouchable after the Jessica Lal
murder case.



19


haryana real estate

Venod Sharma

Kabul Chawla

Kunal Bhadoo

THE ‘H’ COMPANY

Sameer Gehlaut

KP Singh

S

HARMA, who began his political career as general secretary of Chandigarh Congress
Committee, lost no time in becoming Sanjay Gandhi’s blue-eyed boy,
general secretary of All India Youth
Congress under Ghulam Nabi Azad’s
leadership, MLA, MP and Union minister—all within one decade. There was
a time when even as a first-time MLA,
he was treated as virtual No. 2 and the
most resourceful State cabinet minis-

Arvind Walia

Anil Bhalla

ter—more powerful than even Deputy
Chief Minister Chander Mohan, a
three-time MLA. Sharma’s youngest
son Kartikeya heads Information TV
Pvt Ltd, which controls News X television channel, Good Morning India
Media Pvt Ltd and Aaj Samaj group of
newspapers.
It is alleged that any builder who
wants any new license, or any concession, from Hooda has to necessarily go through Sharma. Sharma’s

own interests in real estate are taken
care of through a string of companies like Onkareshwar Properties
Private Limited, Mark Buildtech
Properties Private Limited, Shivam
Infotech Private Limited and Pegasus
Developers Shikhopur Pvt Ltd.
Kartikeya is on the Board of Director’s
and reportedly owns 99 per cent
shares in Mark Buildtech, which has
business dealings with Onkareshwar
Properties. The two, incidentally,

GREAT HARYANA LAND USE CONVERSION CIRCUS
Area Up to 30 Sq Metre

Area Over 30 Sq Metre

Old Rate

New Rate

Old Rate

New Rate

Gurgaon

`14,000

`3,000

`16,000

`3,500

Faridabad

`7,200

`1,500

`9,200

`2,000

Sonepat

`6,000

`1,000

`7,500

`1,200

Panipat

`6,000

`1,000

`7,500

`1,200

Panchkula

`7,200

`1,500

`9,200

`2,000

20


www.gfilesindia.com

are registered at the same address
in Nehru Place. Sushil Gupta, one
of the Directors of Onkareshwar
Properties, is a close aide of Hooda;
Harvinder Singh Chopra, a Director
in Mark Buildtech, is also Finance
Director of Piccadily Group; while
Rajender Bansal, a friend of Sharma
from Panchkula, is on the Board of
Directors of both the companies. The
other directors include Dhirender
Dadwal and Tarun Bhanot, a relative of Sharma. Mark Buildtech allegedly has strong business linkages
with Vatika Ltd promoted by Anil and
Gautam Bhalla, who seemingly has
prospered from the association. In
fact, after the Haryana government
granted three land licenses to Vatika
group, the group’s assets skyrocketed
unimaginably in three years.

Top 33 Most Benefitted Builders of Hooda Regime
S.No. Promoters/ Builders

Land License Obtained in Acres

I

www.indianbuzz.com

1606

2

Ansal Properties & Infrastructure

1360

3

DLF New Gurgaon Home Developers

939

4

Intime Promoters (TDI)

867

5

Omaxe Housing & Developers

866

6

Unitech

725

7

Vatika Land Base

632

8

Parshavnath Developers

603

9

Emaar MGF Land

531

10

IREO KSS Properties

519

11

Sonika

399

12

Chintals India

396

13

AN Buildwell

315

14

Bestech India

297

15

Uddar Gagan

291

16

Reliance Haryana SEZ

251

Rangoli Projects

242

18

India Bulls Estates

222

19

Vipul Infrastructure Developers

216

20

Dwarkadhis Buildwell

209

21

Raheja Developers

195

22

Ramprastha Buildwell

189

23

Pioneer Urban Land & Infrastructure

177

24

Herman Fin Properties

154

25

Grandeur Real Estate

145

26

Uppal Housing

142

27
F it is not Sharma, another person
who can come up with miracles
and has direct access to the CM is
Kunal Bhadoo, the prodigal son of
Vijay Laxmi Bhadoo, a senior SADBJP leader in Punjab. He is married to
Hooda’s daughter Anjali. A Masters in
International Accounting and Finance
from London School of Economics
and qualified Chartered Accountant
from ICAEW, UK, he worked for six
years in London for PwC LLP before
coming back to India in 2006 to start
Kunskapsskolan Eduventures India,
which runs three K-12 schools in

Countrywide Promoters

17

It is alleged that any
builder who wants any
new license, or any
concession, from Hooda
has to necessarily go
through Venod Sharma,
Congress leader from
Chandigarh

1

Jai Krishna Artec JV

123

28

Mapsco Buildwell

120

29

Parveen Gupta, Vipin Gupta

118

30

ERA Infrastructure

118

31

Martial Buildcon

117

32

Desert Moon Realtors Pvt. Ltd.

110

33

Orris Infrastructure

108

Jaipur, Karnal and Abohar. Kunal is
also Director of Havelock Developers
Pvt Ltd, Bhadoo Agritech at Abohar,
which is into contract processing
and packaging of citrus fruits and
fresh vegetables, Navyug Group of
Companies, Navyug Eduventures and

Satellite Forging Pvt Ltd, a joint venture with the JBM Group.
He is alleged to be an unofficial
member of Hooda’s kitchen cabinet
along with his mother-in-law, Asha
Hooda; brother-in-law Deepinder



21


haryana real estate

Hooda and Venod Sharma. They
are virtually running a parallel
government in Haryana which has
a say in everything—from selection,
transfer and postings of candidates
to
‘interviews’
conducted
by
departmental committees to grant
licenses to favourite builders.

A

S per market intelligence gathered from buyers, sellers and
brokers, these days Badoo is
allegedly on a buying spree in Sector
70 and 70A, just outside the Master
Plan areas, along the Southern
Peripheral road. According to
informed sources, unwritten orders
are that anyone else who tries to
buy lands in this area should be
The Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway:
Where it starts and ends, nobody
knows!

22


The arbitrary and ad-hoc
manner in which
decisions are taken or
altered in Hooda’s
tenure can be judged
from just two examples:
the Dwarka Expressway
and the Northern
Express Road
discouraged. In all probability, this
area will be included in another
revised or extended Master Plan just
before the elections. The price shoots
up at least 50 times when it gets
included in the Master Plan.
One of the features of the Master
plan 2031, that has escaped the
attention, is a restriction that only
20 per cent of the total area can be

taken up by Group Housing Societies
in a particular sector. This has
opened up scope for discretionary
licenses, or refusal, on the plea
that the quota has been exceeded.
Another feature of the Master Plan
was to increase population density
figures in specific zones from 250300 people per hectare to over 1,000
people per hectare. This has opened
up floodgates for manipulation by
the politician-builder network. The
Haryana government is also likely to
come up with a new scheme of oneacre farmhouses or country homes
outside the Master Plan areas in
Gurgaon, Sohna and other parts
of Haryana. That will be another
opportunity to make a fast buck for
builders/developers and brokers.
Already many people have started
buying huge tracts of land for the
purpose. Whenever they get struck,

www.gfilesindia.com

LEGACY OF 12 CMs &
PRESIDENT’S RULE

I

N the last 23 years, Haryana has seen 12 CMs and
one President’s Rule. Except for Chaudhary Devi
Lal, Banarsi Das Gupta and Om Prakash Chautala
Bansi Lal
Bhagwat Dayal Sharma
(in the initial stages), all others favoured one or Banarsi Das Gupta
the other builder. The biggest example of political favouritism is the DLF, which is what it is today
because of the patronage given by Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi.
Bhajan Lal was the Chief Minister for close to
five years from January 22, 1980. He was clearly in
favour of the DLF, which managed to get 40 licenses
for some 1,123 acres of land, largely in Gurgaon. Bhajan lal
Bhupinder Singh Hooda
Devi Lal
Such was DLF’s monopoly that Ansal Properties
& Infrastructure, its nearest rival, could just manage a toe-hold with 11 licenses for 442-acre land. Apart
from these two, all the seven others who managed to get
licenses from Bhajan Lal were insignificant players.
As soon as Bansi Lal became the Chief Minister on July
5, 1985, the wind started blowing in the opposite direction and Ansal Properties & Infrastructure became the hot
Hukum Singh
Om Prakash Chautala
favourite, bagging the maximum licenses, followed by
DLF. Another significant contribution of Bansi Lal was the
limited entry of Unitech and Utility builders.
Chief Minister from July 17, 1990, to March 21, 1991, issued
However, when Chaudhary Devi Lal became the Chief licenses for the National Media Centre (21 acres) and to
Minister on July 17, 1987, not a single license was granted Durga Builder (127 acre).
to any developer. This tradition was maintained even
Om Prakash Chautala became the Chief Minister
when his son Om Prakash Chautala remained the Chief again—from March 22, 1991, to April 6, 1991—and did not
Minister from Dec 2, 1989, to May 22, 1990.
issue any license during his term. After this, there was
However, Dec 2, 1989—the last day of Devi Lal’s regime President's Rule in the State from April 6, 1991, to July 23,
and first day of Om Prakash Chautala—would go down in 1991. Again, no licenses were issued in the period.
the history of Haryana. On that single day, eight licenses
However, in the following five years of Bhajan Lal’s
were approved: DLF Universal (5) in Gurgaon Sectors 24, Chief Ministership—July 23, 1991, to May 9, 1996—60
25, 25A, 27, 28 and 43; Ansal (2) Gurgaon Sectors 1, 2, licenses were given. Those who benefitted included,
3, 17 and Unitech (1) Gurgaon Sectors 30, 40, 41. It may DLF (641 acres), Ansals (258 acres), Unitech (309 acres)
be well worth investigating who sanctioned these licenses and others.
on a single date and why. More so, when no license was
In the next three years—May 11, 1996, to July 23, 1999—
allotted two years before or two years after that date!
Bansi Lal tried to match the record by sanctioning 39 proAfter Chautala, Banarsi Das Gupta was the Chief jects over 793 acres of land in Gurgaon. Though Ansal was
Minister from May 22, 1990, to July 12, 1990, and Chautala the favourite, DLF and others too were granted licenses.
again from July 12, 1990, to July 17, 1990. But, no license
In his new term, from July 24, 1999, to March 4, 2005, Om
was given in this period.
Prakash Chautala was a changed person and sanctioned
The jinx was broken when Hukam Singh, who was the 35 projects in Gurgaon over 463 acres of land.

www.indianbuzz.com



23


haryana real estate

they approach someone like Badoo,
who can’t say no to favours from
builders. Here are a few examples:

Hooda fiddles, Haryana burns

E

VER since he became Chief
Minister of Haryana on March 5,
2005; Hooda has retained all the
important administrative portfolios
like Justice Administration, Law and
Legislative, General Administration,
Administrative Reforms, Home,
Information, Public Relations and
Personnel and Training with him.
But his first love is urban development. This is clear from the manner
in which he has retained all associated portfolios like Architecture,
Panchayat Development, Town and
Country Planning and Urban Estates
and Urban Local Bodies. He is also
the Chairman of the Town & Country

S

Planning (TCP), Haryana Urban
Development Authority (HUDA)
and Haryana State Industrial
Development Corporation (HSIDC).
This gives him complete control over
all land deals in the State. In fact,
he is referred to as ‘Haryana Overall

Development Authority’.
In 2005, when Hooda first became
CM, he had 67 seats in the 90-member assembly. Every third MLA in the
State was a Congressman. As a result,
if a minister dared to step out of line, he
was firmly told to behave. But today,
with just 40 MLAs, to run the government at the mercy of independents
is a big challenge. Hence, to keep the
prominent politicians happy, Hooda
tried to ‘gift’ HUDA residential plots to
79 present and former Haryana MPs
and MLAs at Mansa Devi Complex,
Panchkula at a throwaway price of
`28 Lakh. It’s besides the point that
these plots were worth at least `1.5
crore in the open market. The beneficiaries included his son Deepender
Singh Hooda besides Kumari Selja,
Venod Sharma, Kiran Chaudhary,
Navin Jindal, Raghuveer Kadian,

UNLAWFUL ACTS IN HOODA ERA

OON after coming to power,
one of the first PR exercise
of Hooda Government was to
drastically reduce the compounding, or conversion, fee for commercial properties. This populist move
was aimed at gaining the goodwill
of lakhs of building bylaws violators
and those running business and commercial establishments from residential premises. Such persons now just
had to pay `3,500, instead of `16,000
per square yard, for regularising their
buildings along 30-metre roads in
Gurgaon. Likewise, those in buildings along roads up to 30 metres had
to pay `3,000, against `14,000 per
square yard previously. Even people in small towns like Faridabad,
Panchkula, Panipat, Sonepat, Karnal,
Kurukshetra, Ambala, Yamunanagar,
Bahadurgarh, Hissar, Rohtak, Palwal,

24

In Rohtak, Hooda’s home
district, a clique of Sharad
Farms and Holdings,
Sonika Properties and
Uddar Gagan Properties—
all three subsidiaries of the
consortium formed by Zee
TV’s Essel Group, Action
Group and Odeon
Builders—has acquired
almost 637 acres


Hodal, Rewari and Sohna were given
massive concessions. For instance,
in Faridabad, the charges for buildings along more than 30-metre roads,
were lowered from `9,200 to `2,000
per square yard. While the official plea
was that conversion charges would
improve the financial position of urban
local bodies, no one can deny that this
was actually a reward to the violators
of law.
A detailed analysis of Hooda government’s policies reveals how arbitrarily policies were drafted, modified
and backdated to favour builders and
individuals. For instance, a policy for
release of land from acquisition (See
Box) was modified within 26 days of
being formulated in 2007. Once again,
it was modified in 2011. Likewise, policy
dated December 20, 2006, concerning
group of persons, needed reconsid-

eration within four months on April 24,
2007. Also, no explanation was offered
why many of these polices needed to
be backdated by over a year? A deeper
probe may unearth many a skeletons in
Hooda’s cupboard.
One of the first significant changes
Hooda brought about on April 24,
2007, was an amendment of an existing policy laid down by his government
on December 20, 2006. Interestingly,
this new policy, re-defined ‘Reputed
Coloniser’ as someone “who has already
obtained a license under the Haryana
Development and Regulation of Urban
Areas Act, 1975, by the Haryana Town
and Country Planning Department
(TCP)”. This policy allowed backdoor
entry to those private developers, who
were applying for the first time. They
were given the option to sign a collaboration agreement with a group of

www.gfilesindia.com

persons licensed by the department to
qualify to be called ‘Reputed Coloniser’.
Curiously, a ticklish policy—dated
March 27, 2008—decided to give onetime relaxation to private schools,
whose applications were pending with
the Education Department for want of
recognition. The question is, how can
the TCP Department provide legitimacy to private schools yet to be recognised by the Education Department?
Obviously this was done as a favour.
Significantly, the policy regarding
grant of license to Cooperative Housing
Societies, dated September 15, 2008,
states that application of only those
Cooperative House Building Societies,
which have any collaboration with
builders/developers having financial
capacity and technical expertise to
develop residential colonies, will be
considered for a license. This gave an
unfair advantage to the builders, with-

www.indianbuzz.com

out whose involvement Cooperative
House Building Societies cannot
even apply for a license.
The manner in which HUDA did
away with the upper time limit to
complete the construction work,
smacks of a sell-out to the builder
lobby. Earlier, allottees could undertake construction on a residential or
commercial plot within two years.
Now, an extension of up to 13 years
is possible after payment of a fee and
the allottee can take 15 years (2+13
years) for construction from the date
of possession. This new policy, that
came into effect from April 12, 2013,
is nothing but a ploy to renew the
licenses of non-performing builders.
The Haryana government has also
not used over `10,000-crore EDC for
creation of basic amenities collected
from the end-consumers through the
builders in the last five years.

Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway: The
ugly reality of a ‘beautiful’ highway

Randeep Surjewala, Phool Chand
Mulana, Kiran Choudhry, Captain
Ajay Singh Yadav, Chander Mohan,
Hansraj Bhardwaj and Shamsher
Singh Surjewala. They would all have
been richer by a few crore rupees, but
for a last minute hurdle created by
the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
A division bench, comprising Chief
Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and
Justice Mahesh Grover, cancelled the
arbitrary allotments and the MPs and
MLAs were left high and dry.

S

IMILARLY, the High Court
quashed the “illegal release
of land” to RN Prasher, IAS,
a former finance commissioner
and principal secretary, employed
as principal adviser to CM after
retirement. Describing this as a



25


haryana real estate

Despotic Hooda (March 2005-2014)
Questionable Pro-Builder Policies of Haryana Government
Date

Name of policy

Salient initiative

09.06.2006 License for land pockets The only condition is that such land locked pockets
owned by individuals should not be more than 10% of the licensed area
forming part of or granted to the developer.
adjoining
existing
licensed colonies.

19.12.2006 Policy for grant of
license and change of
land use
Came into effect with
retrospective effect
from 7 June, 2005

Beneficiary / Analysis
Land acquisition policy of Haryana
Government is based on ‘sectoral development’ approach. In case a private developer,
who has been granted a license to develop a
project, is not able to acquire some pockets of
land in between or on the fringes of the
licensed area (“land locked pockets”), HUDA
steps in to acquire such land locked pockets
on behalf of private developer. BENEFICIARY:
BPTP—was facing problem due to certain
land locked pockets in Project Parklands—
integrated township, so HUDA took over the
land locked pockets and transferred it to
them for development of the area.

After careful consideration of the matter the Governor 1. The Minister here happened to be the
Chief Minister himself
of Haryana is pleased to convey the policy parameters
relating to the grant of license and permission for 2. Even if the Director Town Planning wanted
to grant or deny a license he needed the
change of land use as under :concurrence of the Chief Minister who
held all urban development portfolios.
1. Competent Authority to grant licenses: The licenses shall be granted/ refused by the DTCP with prior 3. The fate of all cooperatives housing was
sealed
internal concurrence of the State Government at
Minister’s Level. The State Government will how- 4. Group housing societies and builders were
indirectly given a free hand.
ever, exercise appellate powers under the Act.
2. Minimum area for grant of licenses under different 5. Change of land use made easy
zones
3. Area under group housing should not exceed 20% Beneficiary:
of the sector area.
4. Discontinue licenses to the Cooperative Housing BPTP—its strategy has been to quickly
Societies even in Low Potential Zones. No such convert land use from agricultural to land
restriction for construction of Group Housing pro- eligible for real estate development and
jects.
create a vast bank of licensed land. This
5. Change of land use (CLU) applications to be con- helped them launch mid-income housing
sidered in conformity with land use proposals of projects in a relatively short time frame even
the Development Plans and zoning regulations.
during the economic recession in 2008-09.
6. Classification of controlled areas under hyper Apart from everything this helped the
potential, high, medium and low potential zones. company generate robust cash flow with
reduced capital expenditure.

24.04.2007 License to group of persons under Haryana
Development
and
Regulation of Urban
Areas Act, 1975—for
setting up of a colony
—as a reputed coloniser.

Amendment of policy concerning group of persons 1. Group of persons were sought to be given
dated 20th December, 2006
the status of a reputed coloniser for setting
1. Reputed coloniser will be the one who has
up a colony.
already obtained a license under the Haryana 2. Changed in definition of reputed coloniser
Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act,
as one who has
1975
a. Already obtained a license
2. In case of collaboration agreement -- a developer
b. Pays full EDC, service charges and 100%
who is not a licensee but applying for a license for
bank
guarantee
for
internal
development.
the first time full EDC, service charges and 100%
bank guarantee of internal development works 3. Allowed back door entry for private
Policy deemed to have
taken before grant of license “so as to safeguard
developers—without a license to sign but
come into effect w.e.f.
the public interest. Those who comply with
desiring to make an entry by signing a
19th May, 2004.
these stipulations would be termed as reputed
collaboration agreement with a group of
colonizers.”
persons

26


www.gfilesindia.com

Date

Name of policy

Salient initiative


30.5.2007

Amended area parame- Utilisation of maximum 5% of the area of a residential What was the need to back date by almost
ters for Cyber Parks/ IT sector for establishment of IT Parks/Cyber Parks
one year?
Parks in residential
sectors
Ironically all the six licenses for IT City in
Gurgaon over 36 acre land in sector 24,25 and
Effective for application
25A in Hooda’s tenure have been bagged by
received
after
7 th
DLF Universal. Similarly more than 90 % of the
August, 2006.
53 IT parks over 412 acre land are concentrated in Gurgaon. Faridabad managed 6 while
Gwal Pahari —a nondescript place got one.

30.9.2007

Policy for release of land Policy formed vide letter no.5/30/2007-2TCP
from acquisition

26.10.2007 Policy for release of land The earlier policy formed just 26 days back was superfrom acquisition
seded. Salient features of this policy were:
1. Only those applications will be considered for
release under section 48(1) where structure existed prior to section 4 and were inhabited.
2. Any factory or commercial establishment which
existed prior to section 4 will be considered for
release.
3. Any religious institution or any building owned by
community will also be considered for release
4. Any land for which an application was made
under section 3 of Haryana Development and
Regulations of Urban Areas Act, 1975 by the owners
prior to award for converting the land into a colony
5. Same for a land where the ownership was established prior to notification under section 4 of the
Act.
6. Land may be released in the interest of integrated
and planned development where the owners have
obtained stay from courts
7. Government may release any land on the grounds
other than stated above under section 48(1) of the
Act under exceptionally justifiable circumstances
but reasons are to be recorded in writing
20-11-07

Change of Land Use for No additional CLU should be required where ground
buildings that existed coverage or permissible FAR has already been
before declaration of achieved up to 75% of the permissible limits.
Controlled Area

01-02-08

Policy for Change of
Land use permission for
buildings that existed
before the declaration
of controlled area

It is obvious that these revised guidelines were
framed to allow big commercial and religious
interests to openly misuse the system.
1. All it takes for a builder is to claim and
prove—at least on paper that the
structure existed prior to section 4 and
is inhabited.
2. Why special favours for factories and
commercial establishment which existed
prior to section 4? This simply indicates
that either section 4 was not required or
now a back door is being opened.
3. Why should religious institutions be
shown special favours?
4. The act seeks to regulate the land use and
prevent ill-planned, haphazard urbanisation in Haryana and section 3 deals with
detailed process an owner desiring to convert his land into a colony has to follow –
in other words it means that the owner
prior to the award was himself interested
in conversion of the land into colony.
5. When a court has granted stay, where is
the question of releasing the land?

27.03.2008 One time relaxation to
private schools, whose
applications
are
pending in Education
Department for want of
recognition

of controlled area, to be retained as is, benefit of
60% ground coverage to be given.
subsequent floors falling in the setback area, no
new construction to be allowed in setback area.
Please note how the town and country
to apply to applicants, whose applications are planning department is providing legitimacy
pending in the Education Department..
to private schools and institutions which are
yet to be recognised by the education
as per prevalent Education Rules.
department
lease period is of 20 years.

Could it be because the CM’s son-in-law Kunal
- Badoo is himself in the field of education?
vate school whose applications are pending for
recognition in the Education Department


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27


haryana real estate

Date

Name of policy

Salient initiative

13.05.2008 Policy regarding remov- 1. Removal of limit on maximum height of buildings
al of height restriction
in Group Housing and Commercial Colonies for
of building for group
which licenses are issued under Haryana Urban
housing colony and
Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act,
commercial colony
1975
2. Town & Country Planning Department notification
No. 8DP(ii)-2004/483, dated 22.12.2004 withdrawn

Policy likely to affect 391 Group Housing
society projects in Gurgaon, Bahadurgarh,
Daruhera, Faridabad, Jajjar, Karnal, Palwal,
Panipat Rewari, Pinjore and Sonipat covering
5451 acre and 57 commercial projects mostly
in Gurgaon over 343 acre
One of those who applied for 2 licenses in
Com zone in Gurgaon, sector 83 was Venod
Sharma—a childhood friend of Hooda who
applied as Piccadily Hotels

30-5-2008

Radha Swami Satsang
Beas Deras

Scrutiny fee of `10/- per sq metre on the entire site. In Such a low rate —`10 per sq/ metre
return maximum permissible ground coverage and
Change of Land Use permission on vacant lands

15.09.2008 Policy regarding grant License only to those Registered Cooperative Housing
of license to Cooperative Societies who collaborate with builders/ developers
Housing Societies.
who have financial and technical expertise for
development of residential colonies.
27.3.2009

Registration of
independent floors for
the residential plots of
licensed colonies

Registration of independent floors shall be allowed
in residential plots—180 sq yards or above.
Floor and recognized as a distinct, identifiable
property with a separate identification number,
along with proportionate rights in the declared
common areas and common facilities, rights of
access, easements and other ownership rights as
well as the right to use, transfer or dispose off the
property in accordance with the rules.
to separate water supply and electricity connections subject to building regulations/ rules of
Power Utilities.

BPTP—In Jan 2009, Haryana Government
permitted registration of independent floors
on residential plots. BPTP took the advantage
by switching over from plotted housing to
independent floors and started offering three
bedroom houses at nominal prices. In this
manner the company was able to launch and
sell 4,997 units in “Park Elite Floors’ in just 5
months. In August 2009, phase II of Park Elite
Floors was raised out of payments received
from 94% customers in phase I. By late 2009,
BPTP had received `2.41 billion in payments.

29.05.2009 Policy for Low Cost/
Mass Housing Projects

85% of the dwelling units approved under such
scheme shall be done through the Government of
Haryana at a predetermined cost

20.08.2009 Policy for Low Cost/
Affordable Housing
Projects

1. The aim of this policy was to provide different 10 leading builders were licensed 200 acre
categories of affordable housing priced at `4 lakh, land in Gurgaon to build 40,000 units. Not a
`12.5 lakh, `14 lakh and `16 lakh
single apartment has been handed over.
2. This scheme was open only for three months

20.08.2009 Amendment in policy Fallout of a meeting of CM Haryana with colonisers
dated
19.12.2006, on 14 July:
29.5.2009 for grant of
Group
Housing
allowed maximum 10% area for group housing
Component as a part of
over and above existing 20% limit for group
plotted colony and
housing in a sector
increase in density.

214 licenses for 13,448 acre land – for plotted
colonies—highest single category of land
sold in Haryana. Top beneficiaries who have
cornered almost 50% of land for plotted colonies are BPTP (1375 acre), Ansal (1209), Udhar
Gagan + Sonika+ Vipul (886), InTime (865),
Omaxe (754), Parsavnath (646) and DLF (491
acre).

22.12.2009 Policy on Original
Municipal
Limits/
Extended MC limits

28


www.gfilesindia.com

Date

Name of policy

29.04.2010 Occupation Certificate
and composition of
offence where change
of land use permission
has expired.

Salient initiative


Change of land-use to general category
amount if any, toward increase in the prescribed group housing alone has made different
rates if any from the date of application for grant of builders richer by around `4,000 crore.
occupation certificate.
for unauthorised occupation of the building as
well as EDC at updated rates

17.5.2010

Change of Land Use
permission for Fuel station/ Retail Outlet,
Educational institutes in
Controlled Areas.

Those wanting to open educational institutes in controlled areas were required to get Genuineness
Certificate from the DC before being considered for
change of land use permission. DC would issue the
NOC after receiving reports from various Departments.
On the plea that this delay in decision making was
causing harassment to public and in order to speed
up the cases, the Government decided that:
Retail Outlets in the controlled areas as the DC
seeks reports from different departments before
issuing the final NOC.
issue Genuineness Certificate based on his his/her
assessment of the promoter and after seeking
report from the Education Department or any
other competent regulatory agency.

16.06.2010 Educational Facilities in Uniform norms for Educational Institutions in
the
Urban
Areas/ residential colonies being developed by HUDA,
Controlled Areas
Colonisers and Change of land use cases in controlled
areas as well as municipalities.
24.01.2011 Policy regarding release Release of any land on grounds other than stated
of land from acquisition under Section 48(1) under exceptionally justifiable
circumstances to be recorded in writing
Prime Priorities Areas of Hooda government
1

Policies for Easy and On Demand Change of land Use – Main focus of Hooda government

2

Policies on land acquisition

3

Policies relating to group housing/ plotted colonies

4

Policies related to recognised and yet to be recognised educational institutes

5

Policies for IT Parks/Cyber Parks

6

Policy for Cooperative Housing Societies.

7

Policy for Low Cost/ Mass Housing Projects

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haryana real estate

“blatant misuse of power”, the court
quashed the allotment of the property
worth millions just three kilometres
from Sukhna Lake. “This court cannot
shut its eyes to a patently illegal act
committed by the State in showing
favouritism to a person who had been
a senior functionary in the State,
“Justices MM Kumar and Rajesh
Bindal observed while directing
HUDA to refund the amount received
from Prasher for the plot.

I

NCIDENTALLY, the order to allot
the land was passed by Hooda.
Likewise, it was Hooda who had
allowed Ponty Chadha to monopolise the liquor trade in Gurgaon and
Faridabad for about eight years till
2006. There was a time when Chadha
used to own 130 vends in Gurgaon
and 150 in Faridabad. This is when
something happened between the
Modus operandi: New highways open
up land acquisition opportunities for
builders (top right); the entry to
Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway (below)

two and, while the Haryana government changed the excise policy and
system of bidding, Chadha decided to
withdraw.
The arbitrary and ad-hoc manner
in which decisions are taken or altered
in Hooda’s tenure can be judged from
the following two examples:
Dwarka Expressway: A
disputed stretch of 4 km is holding
up the Northern Peripheral Road,
also known as Dwarka Expressway,
connecting Dwarka with National
Highway 8—an alternate link
road between Delhi and Gurgaon.
Though this 18 km long road was
to ease the traffic on the DelhiGurgaon Expressway, at the last
minute powerful builders like Navin
Raheja allegedly managed to get the
alignment of the Dwarka Expressway
changed. Now instead of passing over
empty land, over 300 houses in New
Palam Vihar Colony would have to
be demolished to make way for the
road. How to safeguard the interests
of the thousands of householders
without sacrificing the commercial

H

AT’S off to the Hooda government for mastering the misuse
of change of land use (CLU)
and the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
Here are a few illustrative examples
of what actually happens:
after a government notification to
acquire land about three years ago
in Ullahwas. Private builders took
advantage of the situation and
bought land for `3-4 crore per acre.
After the final notification, once it
became clear that the farmers could
not sell their land, the developers
reduced the offered price to `2–2.5
crore. Still, the remaining farmers
sold off 100-150 acres. Once the sale
deeds were executed, the sold lands
were "released" by the government.
In this process, poor villagers lost
their ancestral land but the developers became stinking rich.
sis after HUDA issued preliminary
notification under Section 4 of the
Land Acquisition Act—in Ullahwas,
Behrampur,
Kadarpur,
Ghata,
Badshapur and Medawas—to acquire
1,417 acres of land for Sectors 58-63,
Gurgaon, private builders spread the
word that the government would offer
low compensation rates. This helped
them corner large chunks of land at
throwaway prices in June 2009.

trap after HSIDC issued a notification to acquire 912 acres of land in
Manesar, some smart landowners
entered into agreement with private
developers and applied for change of
land use. Within two years of the final
notification, the land acquisition process was scrapped.
tion notice, farmers in Jandli, Kamli,
Saunda and Sarai Mehdood sold large

30


www.gfilesindia.com

MODUS OPERANDI: HOW
FAVOURS ARE GRANTED LEGALLY
chunks of land to Alaska Construction
and Vatika Ltd. Soon after, the farmers
entered into a sale deed with Rajnish
Sharma, MD of Alaska Construction and
Venod Sharma’s cousin. The land was
then released under Section 5-A of the
Land Acquisition Act.
The modus operandi to favour select
builders is very simple and ‘legal’. The
only condition is that an official government agency, like the HUDA or the
Haryana Housing Board or HSIDC, is
to be kept in the forefront. Even today,
the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, enacted
first in the 18th century Bengal, is one
of the unusually harsh and draconian
laws with lot of discretionary executive
powers. Cumbersome and costly procedures make it a dreaded tool of State
oppression. It provides the legal basis
for acquisition of privately held land by
the government for public purposes.
“Public purpose” under the Act means
educational, health institutions, housing, slum or rural development schemes
for general public welfare.

The process begins with a preliminary notice under Section 4 of the Act
for acquisition of land needed or likely
to be needed for any public purpose
and a notification from the district collector’s office is published in the Official
Gazette and two daily newspapers.
The biggest flaw in the Act is that—
even in those cases where the land is
genuinely required in public interest
—there is a considerable difference
between the market value of the property and price offered to the landowner
by the land acquisition officers. Once
this notification is made, the owner is
prohibited from selling his property,
disposing it off or doing anything that
might affect its value or compensation—without the prior permission of
the collector. In rural India, where agricultural land is being passed on from
one generation to another and there
are multiple owners and joint families,
this puts the fear of God in the mind of
the landowner.
Exploiting this loophole in the law,

private builders, developers and colonisers then approach farmers and
landowner, offering them slightly
more than what they expect from the
government. Most farmers give in at
this stage. However, if the landowner
refuses, the government department
issues a declaration under Section
6. The Deputy Commissioner, or any
other competent authority, may then
take possession of the land immediately, which shall thereupon vest
absolutely with the government,
free from all claims, whatsoever.
Usually this makes the most reluctant landowners/ farmers to accept
the builder’s offer. Once the deal is
brokered, the new owner—the builder—approaches the TCP Department
to award a license for development
of land in the stipulated Master Plan
area, under Section 9, and withdraw
the acquisition notice.
As per law, the government is at
liberty to withdraw from acquisition of land under Section 16 of the
Act at any stage before the physical
possession of land. So, in a smooth
and legal manner, the government
withdraws its acquisition notice and
private developer makes his millions
from the instant price escalation.
Another related issue is change
of land use. This invariably requires
payment of EDC and official conversion charge, besides an “unofficial convenience fee” of anywhere
between `25-50 lakh per acre, for
smooth, speedy and hassle-free
change of land use. The change of
land use seemingly has been one of
the unwritten key policies of Hooda
government, which has allowed
conversion of 21,000-acre land from
agricultural to residential, industrial
or commercial over the last seven
odd years.

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31


haryana real estate

Development Overdrive?

H

ARYANA today is not a State, but
real estate. Agricultural, forest or
defence, every bit of land in any
corner of the State is up for sale. And
the person responsible for it—Hooda
—is behaving not as the Chief Minister
but Chief Marketing and Business
Development Officer of Haryana.
First let’s understand why Haryana
is in need for such developmental
over-drive? The simple answer is that
Haryana envelops Delhi on three sides
with well defined roads, rail, national, international airports and other
infrastructure. Almost 29 National
Highways, covering over 1,461 km,
2,494 km-long State Highways and
South Asia’s oldest major road Grand
Trunk (GT) Road pass through the State.
Gurgaon is today the fastest growing
and most talked-about business hub
with the highest concentration of multinational corporate offices. It is soon
going to have the `1,000 crore Rapid
Metro Rail—India’s first wholly private
(IL&FS 74 per cent equity share and DLF
26 per cent) railway project. But, while
Gurgaon has so far overshadowed other
areas like Faridabad, Sonepat, Panipat,
and Karnal, this hierarchical imbalance
is not going to last long. Even many
insignificant and relatively unheard of
places like Kondli, Manesar, Rewari,
Hissar, Palwal, Bhiwani, Bahadurgarh,
Jhajjar and Bawal are queuing up to
break the economic glass ceiling. The
effect of all this is a feverish pitch to
acquire land and identify new areas for
infrastructure development to meet the
needs of the growing population for
luxury, economy and low-cost housing,
commercial and entertainment centres,
public utilities, parks, and other urban
civic facilities.

32


The biggest blockbuster, of course,
is the 1,483 km-long Delhi-Mumbai
Industrial Corridor (DMIC)—a mega
US$90 billion infrastructure project
connecting Delhi and Mumbai—being
built with financial and technical aid
from Japan. The highlights of this project
include a Golden Quadrilateral National
Highway and a Multi-modal High Axle
Load Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC)
running parallel to each other between
Delhi and Mumbai. Starting from
Dadri, in Delhi NCR, these would pass
through six States—Uttar Pradesh,
Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and
terminate at Jawaharlal Nehru Port in
Mumbai, Maharashtra. Over 60 per cent
area of Haryana is directly or indirectly
influenced by DMIC. Several top-of-theline industrial estates, clusters, industrial hubs and investment regions, like
Sonipat-Kundli and Manesar-Bawal,
are being developed along this corridor
with the help of grants and loans from
Indian and Japanese governments as
well as investments by Japanese and
Indian firms. The project area of this
ambitious DMIC project extends up
to 150 km on both sides of the DelhiMumbai Dedicated Freight Corridor
and opens floodgate of opportunities
along NH-8, NH-2, NH-1 and NH -10 for
industrial, urban and supporting infrastructure. Already Bawal has evolved
as a mega industrial hub with a large
numbers of multinational companies
lining up to set up their manufacturing
bases. Besides these, two investment
regions at Manesar-Bawal-Nimarana
and Kundli-Sonepat, as well as two
mega industrial areas are coming up at
Faridabad-Palwal and Rewari-Hissar to
capitalise on the locational advantages.
A 135.6 km-long Western Peripheral

Expressway,
or
Kundli-MansearPalwal (KMP) Expressway, is going
to connect Kundli, Sonipat, Manesar,
Gurgaon, Faridabad and Palwal. It
will cross NH-1 near Kundli, NH-2 at
Palwal, NH-8 at Manesar and NH-10
at Western Bahadurgarh. Many investors are investing in residential and
commercial projects on both sides of
the expressway. Since the commencement of work on the Expressway, land
prices in Kundli have increased from
`25 lakh per acre to `1.5 crore per
acre. Almost 242.55 acre land from 14
villages has been acquired for Dwarka
Expressway, also called Northern
Express Road or Northern Peripheral
Road, which will cut down travel time
between Delhi, Gurgaon and Manesar.
This is going to be the lifeline for major
housing projects in Gurgaon-Manesar.
Almost 26 new sectors (99 to 115 and
58 to 67) are being developed along
this Expressway. Phase III of Metro
rail on this route will link IGI Airport
and Dwarka. Further, 12 specialised
hubs—including Education City (5,000

www.gfilesindia.com

acres), Sample Township (8,401 acres),
Cyber City (470 acres), Bio-sciences
City (1,370 acres), Jahangirpuri-Badli
Township (14,226 acres), Fashion City
(544 acres), Entertainment City (346
acres), World Trade City (650 acres),
Dry Port City (1,770 acres), Leather
City (691 acres) and Leisure City (1,853
acres)—would be developed along
the KMP Expressway. The Southern
Peripheral Road and the Northern
Peripheral Road (Dwarka Expressway)
will form a ring around Gurgaon, allowing long-distance inter-city and interState vehicular traffic to bypass the
Gurgaon Expressway (NH8).
That’s not all, also on the anvil are
a Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway with the
largest 32-lane toll plaza in Asia on
NH8, a 8-lane flyover on BadarpurFaridabad stretch of Mathura Road
and a 4-lane highway in Yamuna Nagar
and Panchkula—connecting Haryana
to Chandigarh (without entering
Punjab). Haryana already has Metro
Rail connecting Gurgaon, Faridabad
and Bahadurgarh to different parts of

Delhi. Many universities and colleges
are coming up in Khanpur, Murthal,
Karnal, Mewar and Faridabad. A
women’s university and Rajiv Gandhi
University—on the pattern of Oxford
University in Sonipat—a central university in Mahendragarh, Lala Lajpat Rai
University of Animal Sciences in Hissar
and the first defense university in
Gurgaon should transform Haryana into
an international commercial and educational hub in the next 5-7 years. Half
of Haryana’s over 20,412 sq kmform
part of NCR India's largest and world's
second-largest agglomeration with a
population of 22,157,000. Haryana also
takes pride in the fact that large part of
its area is covered under the NCR, for
which NCRPB is providing soft loans up
to 75 per cent of the project cost.
Prima facie it may seem that Hooda
stole a march over Sheila Dikshit who
used to say that people from neighboring States could come, work and use
Delhi’s infrastructure. Hooda’s logic
makes better sense from the point of
view of NCR—to develop Haryana as a

Builders line the main roads of Gurgaon to
sell their projects

sub-region so that people from nearby
areas do not have to migrate or travel to
Delhi and the influx of Delhi’s floating
population is arrested.
But, Hooda has ended up causing
more harm than good to Haryana. In
the speed to ‘market’ Haryana and
develop it, he has ended up widening
the gap between the rich and the poor
and ignored the real needs of people.
Haryana needs development, but not at
the cost of its citizens.
How many farmers in Haryana, or
their children, are going to benefit from
the integrated investment regions,
mega industrial areas, malls, multiplexes, IT cities, educational, entertainment, world trade and fashion hubs
being set up on the land of their forefathers? Some of them have suddenly
found tonnes of money in their pockets, but without the means to spend
it wisely. In most cases, the price of
all this will have to be paid in terms of
depression, suicides, family disputes,
drunken brawls, oppression of widows,
exploitation of weaker sections and
social tensions over distribution of the
compensation amount. Likewise, how
many of the literate farming youngsters
would suddenly land up with smart,
sophisticated white collar jobs in IT,
multinational and mega-million dollar
corporate giants? A bulk of the vacancies in such companies will be filled by
highly technical foreigners, NRIs and
highly qualified public school-educated
Indians and the poor citizens of Haryan
might be deemed fit only to serve as
low-paid security guards, peons, drivers or conductors in DTC and Haryana
Roadways buses, or low-level constables in Delhi and Haryana Police. Is this
is what’s called development, progress
and prosperity? Who wins if Haryana
and Haryanvis lose?

www.indianbuzz.com



33


haryana real estate

interest of the builders/developers,
is proving to be a tricky legal issue.
That is besides the interests of people
of Sai Kunj, New Palam Vihar PhaseIII in Gurgaon, whose land too was
proposed to be acquired by Haryana
government.
Northern Express Road:
About 618.5 acres were acquired from
Pawala Khasroorpur, Chauma and
Kherki Dhaula villages for construction of a 150-metre wide and 25 kilometre-long Northern Express Road.
This was expected to cost `120 crore
and reduce the travel time between
Delhi and Gurgaon, but nothing has
been done because of protracted
litigations. Fifteen kilometres of
this road passes through suburban
Gurgaon and 10 km through Delhi.
As things stand today, while HUDA
has acquired the land, it cannot take

How Uddar Gagan Properties got absolute monopoly in Rohtak
Licenses
16

Area

Land Licenses in Hooda Regime since 2005

Rohtak

958 acre
Jop International Ltd.

RGH

6.09

Omaxe Construction

Plotted

77.48

Omaxe Construction

Plotted

41.91

One Point Realty

Plotted

59.66

One Point Realty

Addl. Plotted

13.44

Parsavnath Developers

Plotted

118.19

Ramesh Chander

Plotted

4.4

Sharad farms and holdings

GH

14.81

Sonika Properties

Plotted

175.64

Sonika Properties

Plotted

173.03

Sonika Properties

Plotted

19.97

Uddar Gagan Properties Pvt. Ltd.

PLOTTED

92.73


PLOTTED

15.8


Addl. Plotted

32.45

Uddar Gagan Properties   & Others

Plotted

60.43

Uddar Gagan Properties   & Others

Plotted

51.89
Total

34


636.75
Acre

66.5 %

957.92

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CRY IN THE WILDERNESS

O

Such photographs are used for newspaper
advertisements to show ongoing
construction to woo consumers

possession because of a restraint
order by the Punjab and Haryana
High Court till the final order. In the
first place, there was no need for the
road to pass through residential areas.
Secondly, the original path was allegedly altered in the Master Plan after
it was discovered that it might otherwise run through a commercial plot.

Most builder friendly CM
Hooda should go down in history
as the most builder friendly Chief
Minister. His is one of the most corrupt, pro-builder and anti-farmer
Chief Minister Haryana has seen in
the last couple of decades. Political
pundits allege that big builders, corporate houses and industrialists run
the government; he is just a proxy—

www.indianbuzz.com

FEEBLE VOICES

NE can’t but feel sorry for Bhupinder
Singh Hooda, who is wearing a crown
of thorns. At any given day, he has more
enemies within the Congress than outside. What
is worse, most of his one-time friends, supporters
and cabinet colleagues are among his sworn
enemies. The list of such friends-turned-foes
includes four-time MLA and heavyweight former
State cabinet minister Kiran Choudhry and her
daughter Shruti Choudhry, the Lok Sabha MP
from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh. Kiran Choudhry’s
father, late Choudhry Surender Singh, was two- Rao Inderjit Singh
time MP and Haryana Agriculture Minister, and
her grandfather, Bansi Lal, was the Chief Minister
of Haryana. Likewise, former PWD Minister
Randeep Singh Surjewala, former Finance
Minister Capt Ajay
Singh Yadav, his son
Chiranjeev Rao, who
heads the Haryana
Youth
Congress,
Gurgaon MP Rao
Inderjit Singh, former
Union Minister Kumari Capt Ajay Singh Yadav
Selja, AICC general
secretary Birender Singh and Rajya Sabha
MP Ishwar Singh are all friends-turned-foes.
Many senior Congress leaders, like Capt Ajay
Singh Yadav, Kumari Selja, Rao Inderjit Singh
Kumari Selja
and Birender Singh, have gone to the extent
of accusing Hooda of a development bias and
favouritism towards members of a particular caste
in government jobs. The Chairman of Haryana
Staff Selection Commission and a close relative
of Chief Minister Hooda allegedly played a key
role in most of these appointments. Significantly
two arch rivals—Capt Yadav and Rao Inderjeet
Singh—shed their differences and joined hands
to support the demand of 51 Ahirwal-dominated
villages of Rewari District whose 455 acres of land
was sought to be acquired by HUDA to develop
Birender Singh
two residential sectors.



35


haryana real estate

Questions for Hooda
1

Has Haryana government ever
investigated the antecedents and
credentials of the companies before
they were allowed to acquire land in
Haryana and engage in colonisation,
buildings and consolidations of land?

2

Has any one, including the incometax department, ever enquired the
source of funds flowing into these
companies, as also the fact whether
their net worth matches to that of the
value of land they own, or have
acquired?

3

Has the Haryana government
checked the antecedents of the
Chairman/ Managing Director/
Directors of the companies engaged in
land acquisition and colonisation?

4

Has the Haryana government, or
any relevant agency, investigated
the changing shareholding pattern of
the companies that have acquired
huge land in Haryana? It is suspected
that by changing the shareholding
pattern -- by selling a big stake -these companies transfer the land in
the guise of transferring the share, due
to which the government has suffered
huge revenue losses.

5

Has any concrete action been taken
by the Land Revenue Department
to assess and recover the said losses?

6

asked for compliance reports from
builders, colonisers and land
consolidators regarding the
completion of the projects, as claimed
by them in the newspapers?

36


7

How many builders and colonisers
have been fined by the government
on the issue of non-compliance?

8

investigated why builders, colonisers and land consolidators are charging extra amount on flimsy grounds
from customers due to the delays in
the project, whereas the customer is
not responsible for any delay.

9

developed any mechanism to
address and rescue the customers
from the clutches of builder’s mafia for
non-compliance of the terms and contracts of the buyer-seller agreement
and delay of the project?

10

How many of cases have been
filed against various builders in
various courts, including the Punjab
and Haryana High Court, and what are
the issues these cases raise?

11

How almost 1,684 sq km forest
area in the State has become

barren?

12

What was the rationale behind
Chief Minister Hooda holding all
departments related to land and urban
development with himself? Was there
no competent MLA in entire Haryana
Assembly or was it to control land
deals?

13

It is alleged that as the Chief
Minister you are responsible
for conversion of vast stretches
(approximately 3,500 sq km) of fertile
and cultivable land into jungles of concrete. Your comment.

14

Why did you change the existing policy on April 24, 2007, to
redefine the term “reputed coloniser”?
Was it done with the ulterior motive to
pave the way for backdoor entry of certain developers of your choice?

15

Why did you give one-time
relaxation to private schools
run by your coterie through Town and
Country Planning Department on
March 27, 2008, despite their applications being pending with education
department for want of recognition?
Was it done to accommodate your sonin-law, who is in the business of education and has ambitious plans in this
sector?

16

Is it true that your policy dated
September 15, 2008, regarding
grant of licences to only those cooperative housing societies who enter into
collaboration with reputed builders
with certain financial qualification, was
allegedly created to benefit the builders of your choice?

17

Why Hooda gave an extended
time limit to builders to construct the project upto 15 years, by
passing and earlier limit of two years
from date of possession. It is alias that
it was done and the order was issued
to favor the group of builders of
Hooda’s choice?

18

Is it true that your government
has not yet utilised the amount
of approximately `10,000 crore collected towards External Development
Charges (EDC) from the end consumers
through the builders in the last five
years for creation of basic amenities?

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Gfiles February 2014

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