BADDI: The real estate boom has dipped in this industrial belt. Even as the newly set up Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh Development Authority (BBNDA) has formed an interim body to clear new cases the sale of land has hit negatively for want of master plan. As per sources in Department of Industries, the arrival of new units has gone low in past six months considerably.
In last year too, there was slump in real estate over rumour about discontinuation of industrial package. However the things improved after September last year when the package was extended for further three year up to 2010. The land prices that had stagnated were started to witness jump.
In fact it was the starting of the year 2003 when central government announced package for state. At that time the land prices had gone skyrocketed. The most of prime land was purchased by realtors. The some pieces of land purchased from local farmers were later sold to industrial units on three times of the prices of what were actually paid to farmers by realtors.
The land in and around Baddi had sold like hot cakes between the years 2003 to 2005. Reportedly the maximum prices for per bigha of government and private land had recorded Rs. 3.31 cr and 1.19 cr respectively. Now the land was not available in Baddi .The land was only available in and around villages like Mandhala, Kalu Janda, Boranwalan, Sattiwala and Jharmajri. But now there was no buyer.
The government decision to ban the land sale by the year 2006 end had affected the real estate boom. The ban was imposed to facilitate the preparing of master plan. Though ban was relaxed in some manners in January 2007, but with little positive impact. Ironically the prospective investors remained confused about the exact situation hence they refrained away to invest in state.
A cross section of local realtors revealed that the investors were seemed to be waiting for master plan. The long delay in master plan has adversely hit the business, they pointed out.
However Dr. Amandeep Garg the CEO of BBNDA was not agreed with this. He said we have already framed regulations under interim development regulations which would regulate the development till the time master plan was prepared. We have been getting proposals for setting up industries on a continuous basis though at that feverish pace as it was earlier, he asserted. There could be other reasons for this as well, he pointed out. Among the big projects which were coming up since the creation of BBNDA were Lenovo computers with an investment of 44 cr for laptop manufacturing and Saint Gobain also, he maintained.
