The Government of Andhra Pradesh withdrew the controversial GO No.145 bringing much relief to real estate developers. The GO, issued in December 2021, envisages that the realtors should give 5 per cent of the land to be developed by them to the government for weaker-sections housing programme. The Government will use the land so acquired for construction of houses for the homeless poor. The objective of the government in bringing about the GO is to provide houses to the maximum number of the homeless poor.
The government directed municipal authorities to take possession of the 5% of the land from realtors and hand it over to District collectors. In case, if it is not feasible to the realtors to part with the 5% of the land, equivalent land can be given to the government in a radius of 3 km from the site. Otherwise, they are also free to give land’s worth money to the government. But the GO became controversial since the beginning. Several builders have expressed the view that the GO is detrimental to their interests and contended that it would push up the construction cost. In this backdrop, the government has started reconsidering the decision. The GO did not give intended results, but injected inertia into the real estate sector. Therefore, the Government withdrew the GO, bringing relief to the builders.
In undivided AP too, similar rule was implemented. But, the builders appraised their realistic problems to the government and managed to secure relief from implementing the rules. In fact, houses have been built for LIGs in some of the projects in the allotted 5% of the land.
The NAREDCO prepared a comprehensive report on the losses to the real estate sector due to the GO and submitted it to the government. Prior to the passing of the GO, annually the VMRDA used to give permissions to 100 layouts for development. But, after passing of the GO, it gave permissions to only nine layouts. NAREDCO of AP said that it managed to convince the government effectively on the issue.
AP CREDAI hails decision
The AP CREDAI hailed the decision to withdraw the GO No.145 by the Government of Andhra Pradesh and termed the decision as beneficial to the real estate sector. Moreover, it would augment revenue to the government, according to AP CREDAI chairman S Venkatramaiah and other office bearers B Raja Srinivas, general secretary KS C Bose, in a statement. They said that the adverse impact of the GO has been explained to CM Jaganmohan Reddy and Minister Adimulapu Suresh. They thanked the CM for withdrawing the GO.
