Centre boosts efforts to hive-off surplus land

The central government has increased efforts to hive off surplus land and is going to seek cabinet approval soon for setting up a specialised entity which is a special purpose vehicle (SPV), after revealing the asset monetisation programme worth Rs 6 lakh crore to take care of such transactions for ministries, departments and state-run companies. The entity will also manage the land transactions of state-run firms that are facing closure or are closed. The government has been experimenting with multiple models to monetise land for the past four years, and it seems to have finally decided to implement. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman suggested an SPV in the form of a company to monetise non-core assets, which is mainly surplus land of ministries, departments and PSUs in the Budget. She told the media that monetising land can either be by direct sale or concession or by similar means and that it requires special abilities for the purpose while proposing SPV. A senior government official told the media that the new entity would take care of land transactions for PSUs and other government agencies for a fee and would act as an agency where land assets will be pooled before being sold off. He also said that various PSUs that are on the verge of privatisation are in the process of hiving off non-core assets, including buildings and land, such as BEML and Air India, and that selling off surplus land as well as building and apartments is also being explored by two telecom PSUs MTNL and BSNL as part of the process of restructuring. The official mentioned that the lack of capacity in undertaking transactions linked to government land had delayed the process under the current conditions and that the new entity would be staffed with domain experts and also the people trained in complex transactions. NBCC has undertaken some transactions by selling off surplus land and utilising the proceeds to build accommodation for government employees and commercial space. Image Source Also read: Telangana sets Rs 25 cr as upset price for land auction in Greater Hyd Also read: EOW issues notice to Bhopal smart city corp over land auction