The deduction
How much land the scheme takes
One sanctioned Dholera scheme tells its Town Planning Officer to keep the deduction at an average of fifty per cent. That single sentence is behind almost everything you have been told about Dholera land pooling, and it says less than people think.
Land pooling means the government does not buy your field. Instead every field in the scheme area is redrawn together, a share of the land is kept for public use and for the authority to sell, and you get back a smaller plot with roads and services next to it.
The number attached to Dholera is fifty per cent. Three things about that number are worth holding on to. It is a deduction, meaning what is taken, not what is returned. It is an average across an entire scheme, so your own plot could lose more or less. And it was written for one scheme only, scheme 3, in 2013.
Nothing we hold turns the sentence around and promises an owner a fixed share back. If someone quotes you a fixed percentage you will keep, ask them which document it is printed in.
The sentence everything rests on
Maintain average 50% deduction except gauchar land, water bodies, religious places, burial ground, kabrastan, crematorium and samshan.
Apex Authority (GIDB) Notification No. SIRAA/06/2013/439 dated 24-10-2013 sanctioning Dholera Draft Town Planning Scheme No. 3, SCHEDULE, item 5, notif_dtps3.pdf p.2, verbatim OFFICIAL
Average deduction across the scheme is 50 per cent. Gauchar (village grazing) land, water bodies, religious places, burial ground, kabrastan, crematorium and samshan are excepted from that deduction.
The supplied documents state the DEDUCTION, not the retention. The Apex Authority notification sanctioning Dholera Draft TP Scheme No. 3 directs the Town Planning Officer to 'Maintain average 50% deduction' with named exceptions. The balance left after that deduction is what is reconstituted into the owner's final plot. No supplied document uses the phrasing 'the owner gets back X%'; that number is stated only as its complement, the deduction.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| How much is taken | 50per cent |
| Measured in | per cent of land covered by the scheme |
| Measured against | average across the scheme, not a per-plot guarantee |
| The words as printed | Maintain average 50% deduction |
| What the owner keeps, as stated | the balance after the deduction |
| Is that keep figure in the document | no. It is arithmetic, done by us, from the deduction |
| Date it refers to | 24 October 2013 |
| Read from | notif_dtps3.pdf p.2 |
| Classification | OFFICIAL |
Where the fifty actually comes from
The Act does not contain a rule saying fifty per cent. It contains five separate shares, each for a stated purpose, and when you add those five together they come to fifty. That is worth knowing, because it means the number is not arbitrary and it also means it can move: the Act lets three of the five be adjusted if the reasons are recorded in writing.
The percentages enumerated in GTPUDA s.40(3)(jj)(a) sum to 40 (15 + 5 + 5 + 15); adding the 10 per cent reservation in s.40(3)(j) gives 50. This sum is arithmetic performed by us on the quoted figures, it is NOT a quote from the Act, and the Act does not state a combined 50 per cent ceiling in those terms.
How the plan itself describes the bargain
Three passages in the Development Plan describe what the scheme does to land. They are quoted here in full because the plan's own phrasing is calmer and clearer than anything written about it since.
Under the Town Planning (TP) Schemes land is not acquired by the Government agency. It is reshaped, readjusted and returned to the original owner. Generally when a Town Planning Scheme is laid in an area, a certain per cent of land is deducted from original plot and utilised in providing common infrastructure and facilities like roads, gardens, play grounds etc. Land parcels retained by the authority are then used for 'public purposes'.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, Section 10.5 The Proposed Strategy for DSIR, dp_report1.pdf p.182, printed p.160, verbatim OFFICIAL
The principle for reconstitution of plots under TP Scheme is so designed, that final plot after mandatory deduction, is allocated as close to the original plot as possible. The Government is also considering exemption to betterment/development charges, for the final plots being allocated, will not be levied on the private owner.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, Section 10.5 The Proposed Strategy for DSIR, dp_report1.pdf p.182, printed p.160, verbatim OFFICIAL
Under this model, the development authority brings together a group of landowners for the purpose of planning and a Town Planning Scheme for the area is prepared, laying out the roads and plots for public and social amenities. The remaining land is reconstituted into final plots for the original owners, with the size of the final plot in proportion to the size of the original plot, and its location as close as possible to the original plot. Infrastructure costs are recovered by levying a betterment charge on the landowners based on the cost of the infrastructure.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, sanctioned by Apex Authority (GIDB) on 10 September 2012, Section 10.4.3 Town Planning Schemes, dp_report1.pdf p.181, printed p.159, verbatim OFFICIAL
The betterment-charge exemption is stated as under consideration, not as granted. Do not present it as a settled benefit.
There is a second fifty per cent, and it is money
Two different fifty per cents live in these documents, and they measure completely different things. One is a share of your land. The other is a ceiling on a payment you can be asked to make, calculated as a share of how much the scheme has increased your land's value. That payment is called a betterment contribution.
Mixing the two up is the most common mistake made about land pooling, and it usually goes in the direction that flatters the seller.
(i)(a) where the cost of the scheme does not exceed half the increment, the cost shall be met wholly by a contribution, and (b) where it exceeds half the increment, to the extent of half the increment it shall be met by a contribution and the excess shall be borne by the appropriate authority;
Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976, Section 79(1) proviso (i) - Contribution towards costs of scheme, gtpuda.pdf p.47, printed p.40, verbatim OFFICIAL
The betterment contribution levied on an owner is capped at one half of the increment (the increase in market value attributable to the scheme). Cost above that cap falls on the appropriate authority.
Compensation is paid to land owner of the land taken away for roads and public facilities. At the same time, betterment charges known as incremental contribution are collected from each owner to the maximum of 50 percent of the estimated increase in the land value after plot reconstitution. The funds so generated are utilized for the development of infrastructure and common facilities within the scheme area.
Final Development Plan - DSIRDA, Report - 1, Section 10.4.3 Town Planning Schemes, dp_report1.pdf p.181, printed p.159, verbatim OFFICIAL
The betterment charge has its own page, with what our documents do and do not say about whether one has been levied here: the betterment page.
The conditions on repeating the fifty per cent figure
These warnings come from the dataset itself, not from us. They are the terms on which that fifty per cent may honestly be repeated at all.
- 'Average 50% deduction' is an instruction to the Town Planning Officer for a whole scheme. It is not a per-plot entitlement and does not guarantee that any individual owner's final plot equals 50 per cent of their original plot.
- The 50 per cent in the DTPS-3 sanction Schedule (a LAND deduction) and the 50 per cent in GTPUDA s.79 and the DP report (a cap on the betterment CONTRIBUTION, expressed as a share of the increase in land VALUE) are two different things that happen to share a number. Never conflate them.
- The 'average 50% deduction' direction was read in the sanction notification for Draft TP Scheme No. 3 only. The supplied file set contains no equivalent direction for schemes 1, 2, 2/A, 4, 4/A, 5 or 6.
- The GTPUDA copy supplied (gtpuda.pdf) is a scan with a poor OCR text layer. All quoted statutory figures above were verified against rendered page images, not the OCR text.