Chandigarh, December 2
The Hooda government has delivered a jolt to lakhs of people wanting to own a house in cooperative group housing societies (GHS) across Haryana.

The hike effected by the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) in the land allotment rates to the GHS would make affordable housing virtually impossible for the common man.

HUDA recently announced land allotment rates for cooperative group housing societies with rates for the millennium city Gurgaon touching 16,700 per sq m. It was followed by Faridabad (Rs 16,500 per sq m) Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s home town Rohtak (Rs 15,400 per sq m) and Panchkula (Rs 11,000 per sq m). Surprisingly, the maximum rate of Rs 17,300 per sq m was announced for Kaithal. The rates were announced after getting approval from Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who is also the Chairman of HUDA.

This, coupled with statutory government dues and skyrocketing cost of construction, would virtually make the GHS flats an unviable proposition for the middle and lower middle class.

“In fact, it would sound the death knell for the cooperative housing sector in the state where private builders call the shots,” said BK Sanghi, chairman of the Haryana Group Housing Federation. He demanded rollback in the allotment prices, besides certain other incentives for the GHS.

While the Hooda government had been quite liberal towards builders, especially in its recently announced “affordable housing policy”, the cooperative housing sector had been getting a “step-motherly” treatment. The last scheme floated by HUDA for the GHS was in 2005 when the land allotment rates for Gurgaon varied between Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000 per sq m; for Panchkula between Rs 3,600 to Rs 5,400 per sq m; and for Faridabad between Rs 2,880 to Rs 4,320 per sq m.

Official sources, however, claimed the land allotment prices reflected the general upsurge in the property prices over the past eight years and were in “consonance” with the market conditions.