Decks have been cleared for allotment of land to 13 cooperative house building societies for construction of multi-storied flats in Mohali — but with a slight change.

The Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) has fixed Rs 12,000 per square yard as allotment rate of 21.24 acres of land.

This rate is six times more than the price at the time of allotment. The land was allotted to these societies in 2004 at Rs 2,000 per square yard.

A decision to this effect was recently taken at the GMADA Executive Committee meeting, chaired by Punjab Chief Secretary S C Aggarwal, in Chandigarh.

In its previous meeting held in July, the committee had deferred the decision in order to study the pattern of such allotment rates in Chandigarh and Haryana.

Confirming the development, GMADA Chief Administrator Vivek Partap Singh told Newsline that work has been awarded to undertake development work in the earmarked area and demarcate the land allotted to each society.

“Allottee societies will be given 4-5 months to deposit the remaining allotment price, following which letters of intent would be issued to them,” Singh disclosed.

But the new allotment rate has come as a shock to thousands of houseless investors, who call it “unjustified and illegal”.

“On one hand, our allotments were delayed by five years and now we are being asked to pay six times the original rate for no fault of ours,” an allottee said.

Justifying the enhanced rate, Singh said the GMADA policy provides for charging rates applicable at the time of allotment. But in this case, he added, rates were required to be fixed before issuing letters of intent, which were not issued at the time of allotment.

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