Tamil Nadu will launch land pooling scheme for housing projects

By Realty Quarter Bureau

With acquisition of private land becoming an expensive affair after implementation of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, the state assembly has passed a bill for launching the Land Pooling Area Development Scheme for housing and infrastructure projects. The new provision in the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act would make land owners stakeholders in the scheme, in which a portion of the land acquired from the landlord would be developed and returned.

Introducing the bill, deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, who holds the housing and urban development portfolio, said land pooling or land readjustment was a way of consolidating land owners as partners in development. This scheme could also be an alternative to the time-consuming and contentious land acquisition procedure, he added.

Noting that Tamil Nadu was an industrially progressive state with a growing need for housing and infrastructure, he said, “In order to boost economic and social development apart from orderly and planned spatial developments in the state and share the benefits with land owners, it is proposed to introduce the Land Pooling Area Development Scheme as an alternative to the present modes of land acquisition to meet the land requirements for developmental activities of the state,” Panneerselvam said. To give effect to the decision, the government decided to amend the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act, 1971, he added.

While the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority ( would be kept out of the scheme, the Directorate of Town and Country Planning can adopt the scheme proposed by the public sector undertaking or statutory body functioning under the aegis of the Centre or state government or 70% of the land owners in a particular scheme.

Meanwhile, the assembly passed another bill to give statutory to the Transferable Development Rights, which allows certain amount of additional built-up area in lieu of the area relinquished or surrendered by the landlord in urban areas for new roads, widening of existing roads, traffic and transportation, besides infrastructure activities.