NEW DELHI, July 16: A discussion paper released by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) today, details the shortcomings of the Urban Land Celing and Regulation Act (ULCRA).It points out that ULCRA has not met its stated objectives and deserves to be scrapped or modified considerably. It will be recalled that Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had stated that the Government hoped to move an amendment to ULCRA in the budget session of Parliament itself.The FICCI paper points out that land prices have actually risen after ULCRA came into being in 1976, as the availability of land declined. More important, ULCRA also failed miserably as far as acquiring excess/vacant land and making this available to people at reasonable rates. Uptil January 1984, for example, a total of 182,571 hectares of land was declared vacant, but the Government acquired only 10,122 hectares.The Chamber has suggested that ULCRA should apply only to Class A and B cities instead of the smaller C and D categories of cities also. It has also recommended that the limit for land holdings be increased from the present 500 sq m for Class A and 1,000 sq m for Class B cities.
