Towards greater progress in land management

Oliver · 05-27-2011

Consider a recent development scheme proposed by the state government.* When all the local authorities were covered by the duty to acquire land, the Secretary of State would fix a date wherein there would be no private ownership of developed land.* It means, henceforth development would take place only on land owned by the local authorities.* Compensation for land thus acquired would be at current-use value.* Since there would be no ‘benefits’ to the private owner, development land tax would finally come to an end.
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In practice, the scheme proved to be misconceived and mistimed.* First, it suffered from the defects of its predecessors – the basic rate of 80 percent development land tax discouraged development proposals, owners of Properties in Kochi , preferring to take a chance on a new government, committed to its repeal, when soon returned to power.*
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Secondly, and more disastrous, its introduction coincided with the property slump, when development virtually came to an end.* This should have relieved the pressure on local authorities as they accumulated land for development.* But, the economic difficulties enforced a cutback in public sector spending, thus depriving the local authorities of the finance needed to acquire land even at current-use values.*
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The result was that the land scheme hardly got under way (only 2300 acres were acquired by local authorities in the two years in which it was implemented) before the next popular government dropped it.* But the Local Authority’s administrative structure, which had exercised its functions effectively, was retained.
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Nevertheless, we cannot assume that this will end attempts to bring land under public ownership.* We therefore examine the respective merits of land nationalization and the development land tax in the context of the proposals mentioned in the Community Land Act.* When analyzing this Act, we can see that many of its provisions are becoming irrelevant in modern times due to the fast paced developments overtaking the city of Kochi.