Another article from Hindu
The value of land in certain areas of Ernakulam has touched dizzying heights. K.S. SUDHI presents an assessment of the prevailing prices and hints at the shape the new fair value regime-in-the-making will take.
Every square inch of land on M.G. road is worth its weight in gold. Literally. According to the latest real estate trends from the commercial hub of Kerala, one cent of land on the busy M.G. road is worth Rs.1 crore or more. But there is a catch to it. Even if you are affluent enough, you are unlikely to succeed in buying a plot on M.G. road. Because, those owning the plots are not willing to sell their holdings and as a result, no major sale has been effected for quite so me time on this most expensive stretch of Kochi.
All that has been sold anywhere near M.G. road are plots on the by-lanes on either sides of the road that houses most of the key commercial institutions in Kochi. And those plots fetched between Rs.40 lakh and Rs.80 lakh a cent.
Rs.1-crore club
Besides M.G. Road, Marine Drive too belongs to the Rs.1-crore club, where the land value has been skyrocketing over the years. At Marine Drive, it is not just the land that is fetching the astronomical amount of Rs.1 crore. Housing units also fetch these prices here. In one of the biggest real estate deals in the apartment segment, a construction company successfully sold most of its premium luxury flats priced at near Rs.1 crore there recently.
Some of the biggest real estate deals in the city in recent times also took place near Marine Drive. The exact location is the newly developed land near the Goshree bridges. A real estate developer from Mumbai recently purchased 25 acres of the newly developed land for a price of Rs.112 crore. Before this deal was inked, the biggest deal that was struck in Kochi was the purchase of 70 acres at Edapally at the cost of Rs.91 crore by a Mumbai-based company, say officials at the Ernakulam Registrar office.
Diamond mines
Real estate prices are shooting through the roof in Kochi and holdings at prime locations are no longer being described as gold mines, but diamond mines.
Here are some of the diamond mines in the city. The prices of holdings in these sectors are supposedly considered as the guideline values for registering documents. Guideline value is the price or rather an understanding regarding the price of land reached between the officials of the registrar offices and the document writers for registering land deals.
The document writers are expected to brief their clients regarding the guideline value of the property which they intend to deal with. For the officials of the registrar office, it is also considered as an index of the revenue they plan to generate for the Government from the real estate deals.
Treasure spots
Ernakulam South and Ernakulam North are treasured centres in the real estate map of Kochi. Here the indicative price of a cent is half-a-crore. Shanmugham Road, Panampilly Nagar and Kaloor also figure in the half-a-crore club. Owning a cent of land at Chittoor road would make you poorer at least by Rs.30 lakh. The indicative price for Palarivattom Junction is between Rs.25 lakh and Rs.30 lakh. It is also the price index for Thevara, another favourite spot of the real estate sector. The estimated land price at Vyttila is between Rs.20 lakh and Rs.30 lakh.
One needs to spend anything between Rs.15 lakh and Rs.20 lakh for a cent at Kakkanad. These days, the buzzword in all real estate advertisements for plots in Kakkanad is the ‘proximity to Smart City.’ The value of the land in Kakkanad, it seems, is solely determined by the fact that how close or far is your plot from the new IT project. Even the ads for the remotest places in Kakkanad now come with the Smart City tag.
But here is a note of caution for those who intend to buy land at these centres. These are just the indicative prices for the purpose of registering the document. The real rate of transaction would be much higher than what has been quoted in the documents. Millions will be exchanged in the course of thousands of land transactions that take place in the district. People inclined to buy any holding, which they feel like buying, would be spending the amount that is demanded without even bargaining, it is pointed out.
Real figures
Annually, around 1.68 lakh documents relating to land transactions are registered in Ernakulam district alone involving a sum of Rs.3790 crore. This, according to the officials of the Registration Department, is the tip of the iceberg as the real value of transactions is not reflected in the documents. According to the officials, the real value of annual land transactions in Kochi would come to a whopping Rs.40,000 crore.
To get an idea of the extent of undervaluation in Kochi, one should take a look at the number of cases that are pending here. There are 1.75 lakh cases of undervaluation of documents in Ernakulam district alone. These are the figures since 1986, said an official of the Registration Department. In Kerala, they said, there are 12 lakh cases of undervaluation pending. The department sources pointed out that hardly 10 to 15 per cent of the real value of the transactions was indicated in the documents relating to land deals.
Fair value
The black money regime thriving on account of the undervaluation of documents can be curbed with the fixing of fair value, the process for which has been set into motion. The concept of fair value has been fixed so as to reflect at least 50 per cent of the market value of the land in a given area. However, there are complaints that the fixing of fair value of land at the lowest level has not been appropriate enough to reflect the market realities. At the ground level, the fair value is fixed by village-level committees. The values fixed by these committees will be submitted to the taluk committees and then to the Revenue Divisional Officers (RDO).
It will be the RDOs who will be publishing the fair value for the public to submit their comments and complaints, if any. Any interested party can submit his views on the value of the land and a period of 60 days will be allotted for filing the complaints. The Government had also listed 15 criteria for classifying the land in the State for the purpose of fixing the fair value.
Criticisms
Even while going ahead with the fixing of fair value, there have been criticisms that the value of buildings on the land that is sold is not taken into account while fixing land value. A mechanism should be evolved for assessing the value of the buildings based on the type of construction and the nature of materials used for construction, it has been pointed out.
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http://www.hindu.com/pp/2007/07/14/s...1450360100.htm
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Cognizant
I was just commenting on the present condition of non-existent mall space ... Of course new projects are coming up, and the city is decently endowed with classy establishments... anyway, this thread is not meant for this 
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