Greater Noida board approves Master Plan 2041, city to expand by 40,000 hectares

The Greater Noida authority, in its 131st board meeting on Saturday, approved the Master Plan 2041, a blueprint for the development of the industrial town over the next 18 years.

Currently, the Greater Noida industrial township is spread over 31,733 hectares of agricultural area, and, in this second phase, it will acquire an additional 40,000 hectares from farmers for its future development.

Once the development as per the Master Plan 2041 is executed, Greater Noida will become a city spread over 71,733 hectares of land, which will be four times bigger than Noida, said officials.

Among other important decisions, the authority discussed the central government committee report on stuck housing projects, which suggested several ways to revive the real estate sector, which is witnessing a negative sentiment since the past five to six years, thereby affecting the interests of around at least 200,000 homebuyers.

“We have discussed the central government committee report in the board meeting but a final view will be formed only after deliberations on the report in the Noida and the Yamuna Expressway authority board meetings to be held soon,” said Ravikumar NG, chief executive officer of the Greater Noida authority.

“Apart from that, the Greater Noida board has approved the Master Plan 2041 paving way for the development of the second phase of Greater Noida. In the second phase, the authority will focus on providing land for setting up industrial units to boost economy,” he said.

The authority was left with no land to be allotted to industrial projects and hence it decided to acquire more land from farmers for development in the second phase. With the Noida international greenfield airport project coming up in neighbouring Jewar, the demand for all kinds of land, particularly industrial land, has gone up, said officials.

Apart from that, the authority agreed to the three major demands related to farmers’ housing facilities. One, farmers can build houses in villages to a height of up to 15 metres, unlike the earlier limit of 11 metres; two, no fee will be collected from farmers for housing construction on residential plots allotted to them under rehabilitation scheme; and three, their large size plots will be broken into smaller plots for their families up to a size of 40 square metres as opposed to the earlier cap of 120 square metres.

Farmers are happy that the authority has finally complied with their long standing demands.

“The decision was much-needed because if a farmer has a 500 square metre plot and he has four sons, who have children of their own, then breaking a large size plot into smaller ones was a necessity for the family,” said Mukesh Yadav, a farmer from Patwari.

The farmers have been sitting on a protest since the past three months with these demands, among others and with the board accepting these demands, officials hope that the farmers will now wind up their protest.

“We have done away with the charges imposed on a farmer if he fails to build his house within seven years on his allotted residential plot. Now, the farmer’s extended family can build a house as and when they need it without having to pay a fee. Also, the minimum size of a large plot now can be broken into plots of a size of 40 square metres, unlike earlier when it had to remain at least 120 square metres in size. Families are expanding and they, too, need housing facilities,” said the CEO.

The Greater Noida authority board also waived penal interest on dues of 2,200 flat allottees who defaulted on property instalments. “We have also decided that water bills will be paid by realtors if he has not handed over the maintenance to apartment owners association. We also decided to deliver Ganga water to 58 sectors by September next year. Currently, the authority delivers Ganga water only to 33 sectors,” said Ravikumar NG.