Haryana Real Estate

JAPAN
ABEPLOMACY
JEFF KINGSTON
p76
Haryana’s
MG DEVASAHAYAM
RACE FOR PM p68
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
gfilesindia.com
Kunal Bhadoo
Hooda’s son-in-law
Venod Sharma
Congress MLA, Ambala
Arvind Walia
Owner, Ramprastha
Anil Bhalla
Owner, Vatika Builders
Kabul Chawla
Owner, BPTP
Sameer Gehlaut
Owner, Indiabulls
KP Singh
Owner, DLF
De facto
Chief
Ministers?

PETITION IN PUBLIC INTEREST
haryana real estate
12 gfiles inside the government
vol. 7, issue 11 | February 2014
www.gfilesindia.com 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 …. Petitioner
VERSUS
1. Bhupinder Singh Hooda,
Chief Minister of Haryana
2. Secretary, Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Room No. 46, North Block
New Delhi - 110 001
3. Ministry of Environment Forests
Government of India
Paryavaran Bhavan
CGO Complex, Lodhi Road
New Delhi-110003
4. 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
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

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)
gfiles inside the government
www.indianbuzz.com vol. 7, 13
issue 11 | February 2014
(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:
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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.
‡ 7KDW PDQ LPSRUWDQW MXGJPHQWV GHOLYHUHG LQ WKLV
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,
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

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.
‡ ,Q 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
www.gfilesindia.com virtue of appointment. The holder of the office,
therefore, gets opportunity to abuse or misuse 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 socio-economic
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
Haphazard construction has created havoc all around possibly get acquainted with; all the detailed

Most favoured, BPTP’s gateway to billions
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.”
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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.
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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
few favourite individuals and groups, turning them
billionaires overnight at the cost of poor Haryanvis.
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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.
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politicians and others to seek political and other favours
i.e. Quid pro quo.
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changed midway to safeguard commercial interest of
some favoured builders with complete disregard to the
cost and loss of revenue to the State exchequer.
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Government are allegedly influenced by a select
coterie, comprising of influential politicians, builders
and business mafia, including Venod Sharma, Kunal
Bhadoo, Arvind Walia, Anil Sharma, Kabul Chawla and
Sameer Gehlaut.

haryana real estate
Men in shadows:
Those who pull the
political strings
by NEERAJ MAHAJAN
I 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
www.gfilesindia.com 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 alleged-ly
decide most actions concerning the

real estate sector in the State. In other
words, one may say that these are the
people who are allegedly helping, rath-er
driving, Hooda to ruin Haryana.
APART from them, IAS officers
Alike the on-deputation 1996 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer Rajender Kumar Kataria, the
son-in-law of Haryana Congress pres-ident
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
GURGAON-MANESAR URBAN COMPLEX
Land use Master plan
2021
Area in
hectares
Master plan
2025
Area in
hectares
Master plan
2031
Area in
hectares
Residential 14,930 15,148 16,010
Commercial 1,404 1,429 1,616
Industrial 5,441 5,431 4,613
Transport and
4,231 4,289 4,420
communication
Public utilities 564 609 626
Institutional Public
and semi-public use
1,630 1,775 2,035
Open spaces 2,675 2,688 2,775
Special zone 106 106 114
Defence land 633 633 633
Total land 31,614 32,108 32,842
Special Economic Zone 4,570 4,570
Existing town 406 406 406
Village abadis 428 428 478
Grand total 37,069 37,512 33,726
Source: Town and Country Planning, Haryana
MNC offices on Delhi-Jaipur
highway are edifices to lure
innocent customers

haryana real estate
The BPTP and DLF saga
THE 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
Two to tango: The BPTP couple
www.gfilesindia.com 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
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.
WITHINthe 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 negotiat-ing
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 report-edly
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 indi-rect
involvement.

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
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 com-plaint
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.
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 propos-als
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 stat-ing
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.
KP Singh
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 com-mercial
and residential properties in
Chandigarh.
He has big stakes in the liquor trade
in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar
Pradesh. It is alleged that Hooda is a
shareholder in Sharma’s hotels, sugar
and construction business.
SON of liquor baron and one-time
President of Punjab
Pradesh Congress Committee,
Kidarnath Sharma, Venod Sharma
has a good network in the Brahmin,
Aggarwal, Rajput and Punjabi com-munities
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 politi-cian
from Rohtak. On his part, Hooda
too lobbied to get Sharma the Ambala
Assembly ticket when he was a politi-cal
untouchable after the Jessica Lal
murder case.

haryana real estate
Venod Sharma Kunal Bhadoo Kabul Chawla
THE ‘H’ COMPANY
KP Singh Sameer Gehlaut Anil Bhalla Arvind Walia
SHARMA, who began his politi-cal
career as general secre-tary
of Chandigarh Congress
Committee, lost no time in becom-ing
Sanjay Gandhi’s blue-eyed boy,
general secretary of All India Youth
Congress under Ghulam Nabi Azad’s
leadership, MLA, MP and Union min-ister—
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-ter—
www.gfilesindia.com 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 tel-evision
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 con-cession,
from Hooda has to neces-sarily
go through Sharma. Sharma’s
own interests in real estate are taken
care of through a string of compa-nies
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

Top 33 Most Benefitted Builders of Hooda Regime
S.No. Promoters/ Builders Land License Obtained in Acres
1 Countrywide Promoters 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
17 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 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
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 rela-tive
of Sharma. Mark Buildtech alleg-edly
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.
IF 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 SAD-BJP
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
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 ven-ture
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
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

haryana real estate
The Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway:
Where it starts and ends, nobody
knows!
www.gfilesindia.com 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
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.
AS per market intelligence gath-
Aered from buyers, sellers and brokers, these days Bhadoo 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
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 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 250-300
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 one-acre
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,

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

haryana real estate
they approach someone like Bhadoo,
who can’t say no to favours from
builders. Here are a few examples:
Hooda fiddles, Haryana burns EVER 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 develop-ment.
This is clear from the manner
in which he has retained all associ-ated
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
UNLAWFUL ACTS IN HOODA ERA
www.gfilesindia.com 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-mem-ber
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 inde-pendents
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 each.
These plots were worth at least `1.5
crore in the open market. The ben-eficiaries
included his son Deepender
Singh Hooda besides Kumari Selja,
Venod Sharma, Kiran Chaudhary,
Navin Jindal, Raghuveer Kadian,
SOON after coming to power,
one of the first PR exercise
of Hooda Government was to
drastically reduce the compound-ing,
or conversion, fee for commer-cial
properties. This populist move
was aimed at gaining the goodwill
of lakhs of building bylaws violators
and those running business and com-mercial
establishments from residen-tial
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 build-ings
along roads up to 30 metres had
to pay `3,000, against `14,000 per
square yard previously. Even peo-ple
in small towns like Faridabad,
Panchkula, Panipat, Sonepat, Karnal,
Kurukshetra, Ambala, Yamunanagar,
Bahadurgarh, Hissar, Rohtak, Palwal,
Hodal, Rewari and Sohna were given
massive concessions. For instance,
in Faridabad, the charges for build-ings
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 gov-ernment’s
policies reveals how arbi-trarily
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 exist-ing
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 col-laboration
agreement with a group of
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

Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway: The
ugly reality of a ‘beautiful’ highway
Randeep Surjewala, Phool Chand
Mulana, 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.
SIMILARLY, 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
persons licensed by the department to
qualify to be called ‘Reputed Coloniser’.
Curiously, a ticklish policy—dated
March 27, 2008—decided to give one-time
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 legiti-macy
to private schools yet to be rec-ognised
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-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 under-take
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.

haryana real estate
Despotic Hooda (March 2005-2014)
Questionable Pro-Builder Policies of Haryana Government
Date Name of policy Salient initiative Beneficiary / Analysis
09.06.2006 License for land pockets
owned by individuals
forming part of or
adjoining existing
licensed colonies.
www.gfilesindia.com The only condition is that such land locked pockets
should not be more than 10% of the licensed area
granted to the developer.
Land acquisition policy of Haryana
Government is based on ‘sectoral develop-ment’
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.
19.12.2006 Policy for grant of
license and change of
land use
Came into effect with
retrospective effect
from 7 June, 2005
After careful consideration of the matter the Governor
of Haryana is pleased to convey the policy parameters
relating to the grant of license and permission for
change of land use as under :-
1. Competent Authority to grant licenses: The licens-es
shall be granted/ refused by the DTCP with prior
internal concurrence of the State Government at
Minister’s Level. The State Government will how-ever,
exercise appellate powers under the Act.
2. Minimum area for grant of licenses under different
zones
3. Area under group housing should not exceed 20%
of the sector area.
4. Discontinue licenses to the Cooperative Housing
Societies even in Low Potential Zones. No such
restriction for construction of Group Housing pro-jects.
5. Change of land use (CLU) applications to be con-sidered
in conformity with land use proposals of
the Development Plans and zoning regulations.
6. Classification of controlled areas under hyper
potential, high, medium and low potential zones.
1. The Minister here happened to be the
Chief Minister himself
2. Even if the Director Town Planning wanted
to grant or deny a license he needed the
concurrence of the Chief Minister who
held all urban development portfolios.
3. The fate of all cooperatives housing was
sealed
4. Group housing societies and builders were
indirectly given a free hand.
5. Change of land use made easy
Beneficiary:
BPTP—its strategy has been to quickly
convert land use from agricultural to land
eligible for real estate development and
create a vast bank of licensed land. This
helped them launch mid-income housing
projects in a relatively short time frame even
during the economic recession in 2008-09.
Apart from everything this helped the
company generate robust cash flow with
reduced capital expenditure.
24.04.2007 License to group of per-sons
under Haryana
Development and
Regulation of Urban
Areas Act, 1975—for
setting up of a colony
—as a reputed colonis-er.
Policy deemed to have
come into effect w.e.f.
19th May, 2004.
Amendment of policy concerning group of persons
dated 20th December, 2006
1. Reputed coloniser will be the one who has
already obtained a license under the Haryana
Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act,
1975
2. In case of collaboration agreement -- a developer
who is not a licensee but applying for a license for
the first time full EDC, service charges and 100%
bank guarantee of internal development works
taken before grant of license “so as to safeguard
the public interest. Those who comply with
these stipulations would be termed as reputed
colonizers.”
1. Group of persons were sought to be given
the status of a reputed coloniser for setting
up a colony.
2. Changed in definition of reputed coloniser
as one who has
a. Already obtained a license
b. Pays full EDC, service charges and 100%
bank guarantee for internal
development.
3. Allowed back door entry for private
developers—without a license to sign but
desiring to make an entry by signing a
collaboration agreement with a group of
persons

30.5.2007 Amended area parame-ters
for Cyber Parks/ IT
Parks in residential
sectors
Effective for application
received after 7th
August, 2006.
Utilisation of maximum 5% of the area of a residential
sector for establishment of IT Parks/Cyber Parks
What was the need to back date by almost
one year?
Ironically all the six licenses for IT City in
Gurgaon over 36 acre land in sector 24,25 and
25A in Hooda’s tenure have been bagged by
DLF Universal. Similarly more than 90 % of the
53 IT parks over 412 acre land are concentrat-ed
in Gurgaon. Faridabad managed 6 while
Gwal Pahari—a nondescript place got one.
30.9.2007 Policy for release of land
from acquisition
Policy formed vide letter no.5/30/2007-2TCP
26.10.2007 Policy for release of land
from acquisition
The earlier policy formed just 26 days back was super-seded.
Salient features of this policy were:
1. Only those applications will be considered for
release under section 48(1) where structure exist-ed
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 estab-lished
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
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 urbanisa-tion
in Haryana and section 3 deals with
detailed process an owner desiring to con-vert
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?
20-11-07 Change of Land Use for
buildings that existed
before declaration of
Controlled Area
No additional CLU should be required where ground
coverage or permissible FAR has already been
achieved up to 75% of the permissible limits.
01-02-08 Policy for Change of
Land use permission for
buildings that existed
before the declaration
of controlled area
t MM DPOTUSVDUJPO GBMMJOH JO TFUCBDL CFGPSF EFDMBSBUJPO
of controlled area, to be retained as is, benefit of
60% ground coverage to be given.
t QQMJDBOU XJMM OPU SBJTF BOZ DPOTUSVDUJPO PO UIF
subsequent floors falling in the setback area, no
new construction to be allowed in setback area.
27.03.2008 One time relaxation to
private schools, whose
applications are
pending in Education
Department for want of
recognition
t /PSNT NFOUJPOFE JO EVDBUJPO 3VMFT
to apply to applicants, whose applications are
pending in the Education Department..
t 4DIPPMT FYJTUJOH JO UIF SFTQFDUJWF ZFBS UP CF USFBUFE
as per prevalent Education Rules.
t 5IF DBTFT NBZ CF DPOTJEFSFE
XIFSF NJOJNVN
lease period is of 20 years.
t 4BNF QBSBNFUFST NBZ BQQMZ JO 6SCBO SFBT UP QSJ-
vate school whose applications are pending for
recognition in the Education Department
Please note how the town and country
planning department is providing legitimacy
to private schools and institutions which are
yet to be recognised by the education
department
Could it be because the CM’s son-in-law Kunal
Bhadoo is himself in the field of education?

haryana real estate
13.05.2008 Policy regarding remov-al
of height restriction
of building for group
housing colony and
commercial colony
www.gfilesindia.com 1. Removal of limit on maximum height of buildings
in Group Housing and Commercial Colonies for
which licenses are issued under Haryana Urban
Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act,
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
return maximum permissible ground coverage and
Change of Land Use permission on vacant lands
Such a low rate —`10 per sq/ metre
15.09.2008 Policy regarding grant
of license to Cooperative
Housing Societies.
License only to those Registered Cooperative Housing
Societies who collaborate with builders/ developers
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.
t BDI VOJU TIBMM CF EFTJHOBUFE BT A*OEFQFOEFOU
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.
t 0XOFS PG FBDI A*OEFQFOEFOU 'MPPS UP CF FOUJUMFE
to separate water supply and electricity connec-tions
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
categories of affordable housing priced at `4 lakh,
`12.5 lakh, `14 lakh and `16 lakh
2. This scheme was open only for three months
10 leading builders were licensed 200 acre
land in Gurgaon to build 40,000 units. Not a
single apartment has been handed over.
20.08.2009 Amendment in policy
dated 19.12.2006,
29.5.2009 for grant of
Group Housing
Component as a part of
plotted colony and
increase in density.
Fallout of a meeting of CM Haryana with colonisers
on 14 July:
t %FWFMPQFST TFFLJOH MJDFOTF GPS B QMPUUFE DPMPOZ
allowed maximum 10% area for group housing
over and above existing 20% limit for group
housing in a sector
t 1SPQPTBM WBMJE GPS POMZ POF NPOUI
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 colo-nies
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

29
29.04.2010 Occupation Certificate
and composition of
offence where change
of land use permission
has expired.
t QQMJDBOU UP QBZ TDSVUJOZ GFF BOE EJGGFSFOUJBM
amount if any, toward increase in the prescribed
rates if any from the date of application for grant of
occupation certificate.
t QQMJDBOU XJMM BMTP CF SFRVJSFE UP QBZ UIF QFOBMUZ
for unauthorised occupation of the building as
well as EDC at updated rates
Change of land-use to general category
group housing alone has made different
builders richer by around `4,000 crore.
17.5.2010 Change of Land Use
permission for Fuel sta-tion/
Retail Outlet,
Educational institutes in
Controlled Areas.
Those wanting to open educational institutes in con-trolled
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:
t (FOVJOFOFTT $FSUJGJDBUF JT OPU SFRVJSFE JO DBTF PG
Retail Outlets in the controlled areas as the DC
seeks reports from different departments before
issuing the final NOC.
t *O DBTF PG FEVDBUJPOBM JOTUJUVUJPOT UIF %. NBZ
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
the Urban Areas/
Controlled Areas
Uniform norms for Educational Institutions in
residential colonies being developed by HUDA,
Colonisers and Change of land use cases in controlled
areas as well as municipalities.
24.01.2011 Policy regarding release
of land from acquisition
Release of any land on grounds other than stated
under Section 48(1) under exceptionally justifiable
www.indianbuzz.com gfiles inside the government
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 PPI contd. on next page

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.
INCIDENTALLY, the order to allot
the land was passed by Hooda.
Likewise, it was Hooda who had
allowed Ponty Chadha to monopo-lise
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
www.gfilesindia.com two and, while the Haryana govern-ment
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:
x 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 Delhi-
Gurgaon 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
HAT’S off to the Hooda govern-ment
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:
‡ 3HRSOH VWDUWHG SDQLF VDOH
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 develop-ers
became stinking rich.
‡ DSLWDOLVLQJ RQ WKH IHDU SVFKR-
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.
‡ 5HIXVLQJ WR EH FDXJKW LQWR WKH
trap after HSIDC issued a notifica-tion
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 pro-cess
was scrapped.
‡ $IWHU WKH ODQG DFTXLVL-
tion notice, farmers in Jandli, Kamli,
Saunda and Sarai Mehdood sold large
Modus operandi: New highways open
up land acquisition opportunities for
builders (top right); the entry to
Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway (below)

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 gov-ernment
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 proce-dures
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, hous-ing,
slum or rural development schemes
for general public welfare.
The process begins with a prelimi-nary
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 col-lector’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 prop-erty
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 compensa-tion—
without the prior permission of
the collector. In rural India, where agri-cultural
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 col-onisers
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 imme-diately,
which shall thereupon vest
absolutely with the government,
free from all claims, whatsoever.
Usually this makes the most reluc-tant
landowners/ farmers to accept
the builder’s offer. Once the deal is
brokered, the new owner—the build-er—
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 acquisi-tion
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 con-version
charge, besides an “unof-ficial
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.
MODUS OPERANDI: HOW
FAVOURS ARE GRANTED LEGALLY

haryana real estate
HARYANA 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, nation-al,
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 mul-tinational
corporate offices. It is soon
going to have the `1,000 crore Rapid
Metro Rail—India’s first wholly private
(ILFS 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.
www.gfilesindia.com Expressway, or Kundli-Mansear-
Palwal (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 inves-tors
are investing in residential and
commercial projects on both sides of
the expressway. Since the commence-ment
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
Development Overdrive?
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-the-line
industrial estates, clusters, indus-trial
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 Delhi-
Mumbai Dedicated Freight Corridor
and opens floodgate of opportunities
along NH-8, NH-2, NH-1 and NH -10 for
industrial, urban and supporting infra-structure.
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

gfiles inside the government 33
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, allow-ing
long-distance inter-city and inter-
State 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 Badarpur-
Faridabad 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 univer-sity
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 edu-cational
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 neighbor-ing
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
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, multi-plexes,
IT cities, educational, entertain-ment,
world trade and fashion hubs
being set up on the land of their fore-fathers?
Some of them have suddenly
found tonnes of money in their pock-ets,
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 vacan-cies
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, driv-ers
or conductors in DTC and Haryana
Roadways buses, or low-level consta-bles
in Delhi and Haryana Police. Is this
is what’s called development, progress
and prosperity? Who wins if Haryana
and Haryanvis lose?
Builders line the main roads of Gurgaon to
sell their projects

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 Phase-
III in Gurgaon, whose land too was
proposed to be acquired by Haryana
government.
x Northern Express Road:
About 618.5 acres were acquired from
Pawala Khasroorpur, Chauma and
Kherki Dhaula villages for construc-tion
of a 150-metre wide and 25 kil-ometre-
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 Area Land Licenses in Hooda Regime since 2005
16 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
www.gfilesindia.com 636.75
Acre 66.5 %
Sonika Properties Plotted 175.64
Uddar Gagan Properties Pvt. Ltd. Plotted 92.73
Uddar Gagan Properties Pvt. Ltd. Plotted 15.8
Uddar Gagan Properties Pvt. Ltd. Addl. Plotted 32.45
Uddar Gagan Properties Others Plotted 60.43
Uddar Gagan Properties Others Plotted 51.89
Total 957.92

ONE can’t but feel sorry for BhupinderSingh
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 Chaudhary and her daughterShruti
Choudhry, the Lok Sabha MP from Bhiwani-
Mahendragarh. Kiran Chaudhary’s husband, late
Surender Singh, was two-time MP and Haryana
Agriculture Minister, and her father-in-law, Bansi
Lal, was the Chief Minister of Haryana. Likewise,
former PWD Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala,
former Finance Minister Capt Ajay Singh Yadav,
Rao Inderjit Singh
his son Chiranjeev
Rao, who heads
the Haryana Youth
Congress, Gurgaon
MP Rao Inderjit Singh,
former Union Minister
Kumari 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 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 51Ahirwal-dominated
villages of Rewari District whose 455
acres of land was sought to be acquired by HUDA
to develop two residential sectors.
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 alleg-edly
altered in the Master Plan after
it was discovered that it might other-wise
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 cor-rupt,
pro-builder and anti-farmer
Chief Minister Haryana has seen in
the last couple of decades. Political
pundits allege that big builders, cor-porate
houses and industrialists run
the government; he is just a proxy—
CRY IN THE WILDERNESS
FEEBLE VOICES
Such photographs are used for newspaper
advertisements to show ongoing
construction to woo consumers
Kumari Selja
Capt Ajay Singh Yadav
Birender Singh

haryana real estate
Questions for Hooda
1Has 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?
2Has any one, including the income-tax
department, ever enquired the
source of funds flowing into these
companies, as also the fact whether
their net worth matches that of the
value of land they own, or have
acquired?
3Has the Haryana government
checked the antecedents of the
Chairman/ Managing Director/
Directors of the companies engaged in
land acquisition and colonisation?
4Has 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.
5Has any concrete action been taken
by the Land Revenue Department
to assess and recover the said losses?
asked for compliance reports from
builders, colonisers and land
consolidators regarding the
completion of the projects, as claimed
by them in the newspapers?
www.gfilesindia.com 7How many builders and colonisers
have been fined by the government
on the issue of non-compliance?
investigated why builders, colonis-ers
and land consolidators are charg-ing
extra amount on flimsy grounds
from customers due to the delays in
the project, whereas the customer is
not responsible for any delay.
developed any mechanism to
address and rescue the customers
from the clutches of builder’s mafia for
non-compliance of the terms and con-tracts
of the buyer-seller agreement
and delay of the project?
10How many 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?
11How almost 1,684 sq km forest
area in the State has become
barren?
12What was the rationale behind
holding all departments related
to land and urban development with
yourself? Was there no competent MLA
in entire Haryana Assembly or was it to
control land deals?
13It 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 con-crete.
Your comment.
14Why did you change the exist-ing
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 cer-tain
developers of your choice?
15Why 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 applica-tions
being pending with education
department for want of recognition?
Was it done to accommodate your son-in-
law, who is in the business of edu-cation
and has ambitious plans in this
sector?
16Is it true that your policy dated
September 15, 2008, regarding
grant of licences to only those cooper-ative
housing societies who enter into
collaboration with reputed builders
with certain financial qualification, was
allegedly created to benefit the build-ers
of your choice?
17Why did you give an extended
time limit to builders to con-struct
the project up to 15 years,
bypassing the earlier limit of two years
from date of possession. It is alleged
that the order was issued to favour the
group of builders of your choice?
18Is it true that your government
has not yet utilised the amount
of approximately `10,000 crore collect-ed
towards External Development
Charges (EDC) from the end consumers
through the builders in the last five
years for creation of basic amenities?

19 Why did you gift HUDA resi-dential
plots to present and
former Haryana MPs and MLAs at
Mansa Devi Complex, Panchkula, at
throwaway prices of `28 lakh each
when the worth of the those plots was
at least `1.5 crore each in the open
market?
20Is it true that the beneficiaries
in the above largesse included
your son Deepender Singh Hooda,
besides Kumari Selja, Venod Sharma,
Kiran Chaudhary, Navin Jindal,
Raghuveer Kadian, Randeep
Surjewala, Phool Chand Mulana,
Captain Ajay Singh Yadav, Chander
Mohan, Hansraj Bhardwaj and
Shamsher Singh Surjewala and select
officers of your choice?
21Why was the direction of
Dwarka Expressway changed?
Was it done to safeguard the
commercial interest of some of your
favoured builders/developers at the
cost of hundreds of residents of Palam
Vihar area in Haryana?
22Why did you change the origi-nal
path of Northern Express
Road? It is alleged that it was sanc-tioned
to please some of your favourite
builders and developers?
23Why did you shift the powers
of the DTCP to grant or refuse
the licences to the office of the minis-ter
in-charge, which happens to be the
Chief Minister, i.e yourself? Don’t you
agree that this was done to directly
benefit builders like BPTP?
24 Why did the State define
‘Reputed Builder’ to those
allotted the first and the single licence
under HUDA 1975 Act?
25Is it true that you favoured
prominent builders—like DLF,
Unitech, BPTP, Ansals, Vatika Ltd,
Suncity Projects, Emaar MGF, Bestech
Ltd, Raheja Developers, TDI and
Omaxe—in May 2009 by one-time
relaxation under the garb of reserving
10 per cent area for low-cost housing
in their group housing colonies, which
allegedly no builder complied with?
26Why no action has been taken
against the said defaulting
builders?
27Why did you bring in the policy
of removal of height restric-tions
for group housing and commer-cial
projects? This order allegedly
doled out benefits/favours to 391
group housing societies and 57 com-mercial
projects.
28What was the rationale behind
increasing the per hectare
population density in Haryana?
29You have allegedly created
three Master Plans which will
create concrete jungles without provid-ing
the provisions of water, electricity,
sewerage, etc. Your comment?
30As per the norms, one plan is
implemented in full and only
then another plan is envisaged. You
have stated that you will implement
the Master Plan of 2031. Who has
given you this mandate as your
mandate is only till 2014? Are you so
sure of retaining power for another two
decades?
31Why have you created a virtual
monopoly of builders in differ-ent
parts of the State? Like in Rohtak,
where different subsidiaries of Sonica
Builders control 66.5 per cent of the
total land licences allotted in your
regime. The same story is there in
every district of Haryana.
32Why no action is being taken
against the shell companies
and subsidiaries of various builders,
which are out to bypass the land
holding laws in the State and also
avoid registry charges on transfer of
ownership of immovable property?
33It is alleged that you and the
State machinery have helped
BPTP suddenly become the biggest
and richest company in the State,
with their business taking a quantum
jump after you became CM. Your
comment.
34Why did you reduce the
compounding and conversion
fees for commercial properties? It is
alleged that the decision was meant
to benefit the select violators of
building by-laws, who have also
cheated the State exchequer.
35It is alleged that the
proposed changes in the
Master Plan were leaked to favoured
builders like Ramprastha, BPTP, etc.,
who took advantage of such
information and purchased huge
stretches of land in the very sectors,
hence benefitting to the tune of
thousands of crores.
36It is alleged that the Haryana
government is run by de
facto chief ministers like Venod
Sharma, Kunal Bhadoo, Arvind Walia,
Anil Sharma, Sameer Gehlaut, KP
Singh and Kabul Chawla. What made
you allow these extra constitutional
authorities to act on your behalf?

haryana real estate
Hooda’s coterie
the Haryana cadre, as his first Principal
Secretary in March 2005. Tayal, who
hails from Hissar, was his college
friend and both had good rapport. A
keen golfer, Tayal was known as a
frank and blunt officer. It is reported
that Tayal was brought in because
he had the experience of Town and
Country Planning. Sources disclosed
that Chhattar Singh, a 1980 batch IAS
officer, who was already working as
Additional Principal Secretary was
brought in as Principal Secretary at
the recommendation of Tayal when the
www.gfilesindia.com Builders’ mantra: Build dream
houses, sewer pipes and civic
amenities can wait!
a rubber stamp. An example of how
prominent builders manage to bend
policy matters is seen in the meet-ing
chaired by Hooda with repre-sentatives
of DLF, Unitech, BPTP,
Ansals, Vatika Ltd, Suncity Projects,
Emaar MGF, Bestech Ltd, Raheja
Developers, TDI and Omaxe in May
2009. Assembly elections were round
the corner and the government want-ed
the developers to announce popu-list
low-cost housing schemes.
SO, at the behest of Vatika Ltd,
Hooda announced a “one-time
relaxation” for all those build-ers
who applied for Group Housing
Colony as part of their plotted colony
by the next day and were prepared to
reserve 10 per cent area for low-cost
housing. In fine print it meant that
a builder who agreed to do so would
get to build four additional large flats
per acre. In one instance, the govern-ment
even announced 40,000 afford-able
homes for `12.5-`16 lakh each.
About 10 top-notch builders were
given licenses for 200 acres of land
in Gurgaon. But till date, not a single
apartment is nearing completion. An
irrefutable fact is that no one wants to
build low-cost housing projects for the
poor. The builders keep exploiting the
sentiments behind it to get favours for
themselves, but do not actually take
such projects seriously.
Another example of behind-the-scene
administrative support is how
HUDA first earmarked one million sq.
ft land for open auction in Gurgaon’s
Sector 29, but kept unnecessarily
delaying the auction to give the build-ers
a chance to sell their properties at
high rates.
A cruel joke, however, is how the
new Gurgaon Master Plan tries to
pack all economically weaker and
low-income groups—expected to be
around 42 lakh plus in 2031—on just
Haryana Chief Minister
Bhupinder Singh Hooda has
been ruling the State with the
help of his trusted officers for the
last nine years. Hooda appointed
ML Tayal, a 1976 batch IAS officer of
ML Tayal Krishan Khandelwal Chhattar Singh SS Dhillon

50 hectares of land in Sector 68. This
means confining them into unhy-gienic
and insanitary ghettoes having
population density of more than 1,125
people per hectare.
In his two stints over the last seven
years, Hooda has broken all records
of the past 23 years and granted over
1,000 licenses to builders to develop
all kinds of plots, group housing soci-eties,
commercial plots, IT Parks, IT
Cities and low-cost housing projects.
While 12 of his predecessors managed
to grant licenses for just 8,550.32 acres,
Hooda has granted licenses for 21,447
acres. A majority of these licenses
latter’s term was over.
Hooda has looked after the interests
of both the officers, given the long
association and being privy to Hooda’s
secrets, by respectably rehabilitating
them. Tayal is the member of
Competition Commission of India and
Chhattar Singh is a Member of the
Union Public Service Commission.
Sudeep Singh Dhillon, a senior IAS
officer of 1984, was appointed as the
new Principal Secretary on August 30,
2013. Dhillion, an upright officer, has
varied experience of administration.
He has also worked as Vice-Chairman
of HUDA.
The second most important officer is
a 1985 batch officer, Dr Krishan Kumar
Khandelwal. As Principal Secretary to
the Chief Minister, he looks after
media and public relations.
Due to his innovative ideas and
media management, Hooda won a
good number of seats in the last
assembly elections. Ironically,
Dhillon and Khandelwal are at
loggerheads but both are loyal to
the Chief Minister.
It is reported that apart from
these two important functionaries
of the Haryana Government, TC
Gupta, Director General and Special
Secretary, Town and Country
Planning and Urban Estates
Departments, 1987-batch IAS officer
of Haryana cadre is eyes and ears
of Hooda regarding land-related
matters.

haryana real estate
Dwarka Expressway:
Neither express
nor way—just a
speculators’ den
www.gfilesindia.com THE Dwarka Expressway is a builder’s para-dise
and customer’s nightmare. Bhupinder
Singh Hooda must have been a dreamer in
his life and must have been a good sketchmas-ter,
believing in creating castles, towns, casinos
on paper. The moment he got an opportunity to
turn his visions into reality, he used the Haryana
Development Authority’s map and drew a straight
line bordering Gurgaon, which is now called the
Dwarka-Gurgaon Expressway. It is a dreamland and
goldmine for builders. According to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the growth rate of India is 3.2
per cent. The inference of this is that there is no
major industrial activity happening in India. So, one
needs a place where the resources can be placed for
profit. Hooda has facilitated all the speculators and
provided them with their playground—the Dwarka-
Gurgaon Expressway. As per real estate experts, the
expressway is a gold mine worth `2 lakh crore. It is
definitely not just a connecting road from Dwarka
to Gurgaon—but much more. There is not a single
small or big builder who is not present there. Their
colourful hoardings indicate the boundary walls of
their money spinning mill, acres of what was once
flourishing farmland.

gfiles team travelled to the expressway to ascer-tain
first hand what is happening on the ground. It
takes almost an hour to locate the expressway as
nobody except the builders knows the exact loca-tion.
One starts off from Palam Vihar’s 10-feet street,
or the chaotic Old Bus Stand of Gurgaon, approach-ing
a 20-feet road further and then going zig-zag
through the village. Then you see a bizarre scene,
the actual sketch drawn by Hooda on the ground
– his dreamland. Nobody knows where the express-way
connects or what it connects. The moment you
reach the expressway and travel from one end to
another, it is not a smooth journey at all. The obsta-cles
are many – varying from open nalas, blockades,
a temple and even houses. Or, suddenly the road
just disappears. One has to go through a twisting
kachha track to reconnect with the road. The only
roads which seem to be of some calibre are the ones
leading to builder plots.
The builders have started basic construction, just
to advertise in newspapers that actual site construc-tion
is going on. This is to collect huge amounts of
money from unsuspecting and honest customers,
who are sitting miles away visualising designer
houses at sites which are just fields and mud. The
gfiles team visited one of the builders to see his
model villa. It was truly a dream house. The price
tag: `4.5 crore, but without water, electricity, road,
hospital, schools, etc.
The builders are there in full strength. When the
expressway will see the light of day, nobody knows.
But the villages and their acquired lands are already
reduced to slums, turning the lives of the people
there upside down.

haryana real estate
and bulk of the land in the last seven-and-
a-half years of Hooda rule have
been cornered by a clique of just 33
builders. These include Countrywide
Promoters, Ansal Properties
Infrastructure, DLF, New Gurgaon
Home Developers, Intime Promoters
(TDI), Omaxe Housing Developers,
Unitech, Vatika Land Base, Parsavnath
Developers, Emaar MGF Land, IREO
KSS Properties, Sonika, Chintals
India, AN Buildwell, Bestech India,
Uddar Gagan, Reliance Haryana SEZ,
Rangoli Projects, India Bulls Estates,
Vipul Infrastructure Developers,
Dwarkadhis Buildwell, Raheja
Developers, Ramprastha Buildwell,
Pioneer Urban Land Infrastructure,
Herman Fin Properties, Grandeur
Real Estate, Uppal Housing, Jai
Krishna Artec JV, Mapsco Buildwell,
Parveen Gupta, Vipin Gupta, ERA
Infrastructure, Martial Buildcon,
Desert Moon Realtors Pvt Ltd and
Orris Infrastructure. Each of them
can be said to be a direct beneficiary
of Hooda’s benevolence in the sense
www.gfilesindia.com that they have not only have managed
to get large banks of 100 acres, but in
a cool, calculated manner have been
given virtual monopoly in different
parts of the State.
HOODA is the uncrowned king
of Rohtak, which is often
referred to as Haryana’s
political capital. In Jat dominat-ed
Rohtak, Hooda’s home district
and political constituency, 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
636.75 acres of land. This gives them
a virtual monopoly in the market
with 66.5 per cent land licenses in the

A housing complex amidst a green
belt flouts all ecological norms (left);
rising dust adds to the pollution
(bottom left)
district since the day Hooda became
CM in 2005. Similarly, in Panipat,
Ansal Properties Infrastructure
has bagged 346 acre land and 25
per cent of all licenses. The same
story is repeated in Sonipat where
Intime Promoters has managed to get
887 acres of land and overall 29 per
cent of all licenses. Ansal Properties
Infrastructure holds 75.6 per
cent, i.e., 167.34 out of 221.24 acres
licensed in Yamuna Nagar-Jagadhari
and 125 acre, that is 33 per cent
land licensed in Kurukshetra. Omaxe
Construction commands Palwal
market with 35.6 per cent land,
while Baderwals Infraprojects, VPN
Real Estate and Choice Real Estate
Developers have complete monop-oly
with 100 per cent land licenses
in Mahendergarh, Sirsa and Bawal,
respectively. Countrywide Promoters
is the undisputed king of Faridabad
with 1,282 acre of the 2,402 acre
land sold—53.4 per cent of all the
licenses. Gurgaon is a different ball
game. Though Ansal Properties,
Anant Raj Industries, Countrywide
Promoters, Commander Realtors,
Chintals India and Bestech India have
all managed to have their own pock-ets
of influence in the new areas, DLF
Ltd has the overall edge in Gurgaon.
Many of the builders use shell com-panies
and subsidiaries for obtaining
the land—circumventing the land
ceiling act, done away with recently.
A common practice among develop-ers
is to have a matrix of companies to
conceal the actual purchase. At a later
date, the subsidiary, or the shell com-pany,
is bought or sold with the land
to avoid registry charges, even though
this violates the law on transfer of
ownership of immovable property.
Planned urban disaster THE fact that three unwanted,
undesirable and untimely
Master Plans 2021, 2025 and
2031 were introduced within 7 years
is symbolic of a methodical and bru-tal
exploitation of residential, com-mercial
and industrial land under
Hooda’s leadership. The hidden
agenda behind these frequent chang-es
in Master Plans was allegedly to
favour few individuals and builders.
Only Hooda can say what he gained;
the only thing that appreciated in the
process was real estate prices, that
too in a few pockets of the State. In
the overall context, Haryana and its
citizens will continue to pay the price
in the years to come.
One of the first things that Hooda
did after coming to power was to
change the industrial policy of the
State and make it favourable for
real estate development. Within
15 months of taking over, Hooda
released the first draft of Master
Plan 2021 on July 11, 2006. Intime
Promoters, Countrywide, Omax,
Vipul Infrastructure, Bestech India,
Many of the builders use
shell companies and
subsidiaries for obtaining
the land—circumventing
the land ceiling act, done
away with recently.

Haryana Real Estate

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