The central government has amended its policy on disposal of its 60,000 acres of unused and unproductive salt pan lands across the country, allowing their transfer on easy terms for “various national development” projects, including affordable housing and industrial use, a senior official said.
The surplus salt land can now be transferred for biodiversity conservation, eco-sensitive projects, renewable energy, and affordable housing, among others, the official said. The lands could, however, be transferred only to central government departments, central public sector enterprises,, state governments and public enterprises of states. The transfer will be on lease of 99 years and only state governments will have the power to sub-lease these lands to the beneficiaries in case of slum redevelopment projects, housing projects for economically weaker sections and industrial plots. The land use for the plots will be fixed at the time of transfer and cannot be changed.
Private parties can only acquire salt land which is under litigation and government entities are unwilling to take. Auction will be carried out for land that is under litigation or involved in some other legal tangle.
In earlier guidelines too, which have been superseded, only government entities were eligible to get salt land but it had put central government departments at the top of priority list followed by central PSEs and then state government and its PSEs. The new guidelines prescribe no order of priority.
The new guidelines have also reduced the cost of salt land for central PSEs, state governments and state PSEs. As per earlier guidelines the lands to these entities could be transferred only at market value. But now for ports and related activities, industrial purposes, renewable energy projects, eco-tourism the salt land will be made available at 50% of the guideline value or circle rate of the state.
For aquaculture development, salt water fisheries, sea water cultivation and agriculture innovation the land will be available at 25% of the cost. For slum development, affordable housing and other housing projects under the different government schemes, schools, hostels and other social infrastructure the land will be available at 25% of the cost.
For public infrastructure and utilities like roads, highways, bridges, sewerage plans the land will be available at 10% of the guideline value or circle rate. On land under litigation 20% discount over the discounted rate will be offered. If there are no buyers for the disputed land, it will be auctioned to private parties. Central government departments will continue to get the land at token payment of Rs 1. Land will be free for conservation and water management projects.
The central government owns 59793 acres of salt lands across the country through the Salt Department of the Department for Promotion of Industry And Internal Trade (DPIIT). Around 5000 acres of this land is in Mumbai and its suburbs. The total area under salt production in the country is about 6.57 lakh acres.
The larger interest is in the salt land of Mumbai but it cannot be made available for commercial use. Other salt land parcels are available in coastal areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Sea salt accounts for 82% of the total salt production in the country. Gujarat accounts for 85.8% of the production, followed by Tamil Nadu at 6.47% and Rajasthan 6.35%.
60,000 acres of salt land now available for industrial use, housing