Hyderabad: Day three of the Uppal Bhagat e-auction saw a lukewarm response from bidders. One bidder had purchased a single chunk of land in the second on Sunday, the second day. Of the 1,68,000 square yards of land to be auctioned, the Hyderabad Metropoli-tan Development Authority has sold only about 78,000 sq, yds. The HMDA sold 31,311.5 square yards for Rs 155 crore on the first day of the e-auction, 28,909.8 sq. yds for Rs 135 crore on the second day and 78,000 square yards for Rs 74 crore on day 3.
“We have no idea why there are these diminishing numbers in the e-auction. We suspect a nexus between realtors and politicians. If we go by the trends of the e-auction, the price of residential plots has increased but not the price of commercial or multi-purpose lands. In the first two days we auctioned residential plots for Rs 79,900 per sq. yd but the commercial and multi-purpose land was auctioned for Rs 30,200 which is just Rs 200 higher than the upset price,” said a senior HMDA official requesting anonymity.
He said on the third day of the bidding, the HMDA auctioned multi-purpose lands. A total of 88,675 sq. yds spread across 25 plots remained unsold. The HMDA official said that realtors have been hiking the price of residential plots and a thorough inquiry would be conducted into this before bringing it to the notice of the state government. “Despite selling huge chunks of land on the third day, the revenue dipped from 65.06 per cent on the first day to 37.1 per cent on Monday,” the official added.
