GUNTUR: The real estate activity is making valuable fertile lands barren and unusable.
The continuous rise in price of land, following the announcement regarding location of Amaravati, has prompted many developers to buy fertile lands and turn them into plots, eyeing good profits.
Considering that investing on plots would fetch them benefits as they can sell the land when there is a boom in the realty sector, many people have just bought the plots and kept them idle without any construction.
In fact, this has been going on for the last 30 years but this activity has increased in the last one year, after the announcement on Amaravati.
This type of investment is proving disastrous for fertile lands.
The realtors and developers are selling plots by converting fertile agriculture lands into real estate ventures. However, neither the developer nor the buyer are concerned to develop thesee lands.
Those purchasing the plots have been keeping the land idle thinking to resell it when they can get a good price. As a result, there is no development in any of the ventures.
Environmentalists have been expressing concern over the plotting of fertile lands which is making them barren.
They said the government should take up development works within a time limit to save the fertile lands.
According to sources in the realty sector, housing/plot ventures in nearly 50,000 acres in Krishna and Guntur districts are idle without any development as the buyers are considering them as “investment plots.”
Sk. Yasin, an investor, said the lands are being considered gold due to exponential rise in the price of the plots. “Many people are showing interest in investing in plots as they can resell them when there is more rise in the price,” he said.
“Two years ago, a square yard at Kankicherla and Nandigama costed anything between '800-'2,000 as they are adjacent to Vijayawada-Hyderabad national highway. Now, the price is ranging between '4,000 and '9,000 a square yard. “So public prefer to invest but not construct houses.”
G. Narasimha Rao, a developer, said 80 pc of the ventures do not have any development as resale of plots is continuing. “Buyers do not want to construct as vacant plots are fetching profits.”
Master plan breathes life into realty sector
The images relating to Amaravati master plan have been a boon to the realtors and developers.
The realtors are using the images to their advantage and trying to sell the plots in their ventures at a premium price.
The developers are showing images of the master plan to the buyers and claiming that the ventures will be adjacent to the ring roads and suburban railway lines.
Before the announcement of Amaravati location, the real estate sector has witnessed a slowdown and the realtors struggled to sell their plots.
Cut to the government making an announcement about the new capital at Tullur. Realtors started using conventional maps of Krishna and Guntur districts to sell their ventures but it did not help them much as they could not give the buyers a clear view of the new capital.
The government handed over the task of preparing the Amaravati master plan to Singaporean Surbana and Jurong companies and their graphics-filled master plan with inner/outer ring roads and skywalks spurred the real estate activity.
A marketing officer of a reputed real estate company, N. Ramakri-shna said the Amaravati master plan was very attractive and colourful with the graphics of ring roads, development corridors, proposed urban areas, proposed suburban rail, high speed rail, proposed Vijayawada bypass, transit corridor road and others. “The images of the master plan are helping us in selling our plots as we are able to explain our customers of the upcoming facilities.”
Md. Yusuf, a potential buyer, said the Amaravati master plan images are very helpful in making a choice. “Initially, I planned to purchase a plot at Namburu but as the master plan showed it as an agriculture protection zone, I am planning to buy one in urban area now.”
