Noida authority to cancel lease of 5,600 vacant plots

NOIDA: In a recently concluded survey, the Noida Authority has identified 5,665 vacant plots in the city. While 3,766 of the identified plots have been allocated, the others remain with the authority.

A special audit-cum-verification drive will be initiated before deciding the fate of the plots – which were taken up in the previous schemes but went vacant.

The owners of such properties have to be traced before August 31. Notices have been served to them to ascertain the cause of leaving the property unoccupied.

“Upon verification, the process to cancel the lease of vacant plots will be taken up. The plots that are reserved for the development of facilities will be given to the residents’ groups after due deliberation,” said Ritu Maheshwari, the chief executive officer of the authority.

Over the decades, nearly 85,000 plots under various categories have been allocated in the city. The ones given to developers for building apartments are separate. While the majority of the plots are being used for residential purposes, around 10,000 industrial units have also been established. The others are under use for broadly commercial and institutional purposes.

Acting on the complaints of RWAs, a drive to clean up the vacant plots was launched in May. “The plots were being used to dump waste. During the night, some hoodlums used to gather around in residential colonies. The issue was raised repeatedly in the internal meetings of the colony,” said Abhishek Yadav from Sector 61 in Noida.

While cleaning up such plots, the officials also created a database of the vacant plots and found that the majority was residential plots.

“As many as 4,372 vacant plots were within residential sectors. Only 1,435 were not allotted. Owners of the remaining 2,937 will be traced,” said an officer.

Since some of these plots were allocated nearly 20 years back, officials are worried about tracing the original allottees in the absence of working phone numbers. The in-charge of the work circle have been instructed to meet people staying in the immediate neighbourhood to trace the owners of the plots.