NOIDA: The economic development and expansion of the city’s urban sprawl along the Yamuna Expressway is set to gain pace this year, with the state government sanctioning a fresh interest-free loan of Rs 1,500 crore that will boost the process of acquiring land for various projects.
This is the second tranche of loan that UP has granted the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) for acquiring 5,000 hectares over the next 10 years. In November last year, the government had disbursed Rs 1,779 crore.
Now that a government loan of around Rs 3,300 crore is already in its accounts, YEIDA will contribute an equal share to create a Rs 6,500-crore corpus and acquire the land to develop housing, commercial and industrial projects in the area that has shot into focus because of the upcoming Noida international airport.
With the Rs 1,779 crore it received last November, YEIDA started acquiring 1,200 hectares of industrial land in sectors 10, 28, 29 and 32 and in Tappal Bajna for the proposed logistics park.
On Tuesday, YEIDA sent a proposal to the Noida administration to acquire another 1,450 hectares in various sectors of 10 villages near the airport. “These villages are slated for development in the master plan for the next 20 years. The 1,500-odd hectares that will be acquired in these sectors will be classified into specific categories. For instance, Sector 5 will have residential projects, Sector 6 industrial, sectors 7 and 8 warehousing and logistics (mixed land use) and sectors 9 and 11 institutional,” said Arun Vir Singh, the YEIDA CEO.
The maximum land – 298 hectares – will be acquired in Mundrah village, followed by 256 hectares in Kanpur (not the district), 235 in Dastampur, 220 in Kallupura, 167 in Birampur, 138 in Nagla Shahpur, 87 in Mayana, 20 in Ismail Nagar, 18 in Jaun Chana, and 13 hectares in Milak Karimabad.
Officials said the government owned some 55 hectares, which needed to be reclaimed. According to an estimate, the acquisition of 1,500 hectares will cost around Rs 3,000 crore in total.
YEIDA, Singh said, will now prepare a draft of its 10-year plan across these 5,000 hectares and place it for discussion at the next board meeting.
“We don’t want any hindrances. We will place our plan for approval at the next meeting. According to our agreement with the government, we will have to make an equal contribution for acquiring the land. So, there will be a total fund of over Rs 6,500 crore,” the CEO added.
How will YEIDA source its funds? Officials said they planned to take loans from banks and set aside a part of the Authority’s revenue generated from land allotments to build the corpus. Sources in YEIDA said it was in the process of securing a loan of Rs 1,500 crore from State Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra and Punjab National Bank.
