The new craze of Delhi’s neo-rich and the corporates to develop holiday or de-stressing resorts to Delhi, Gurgaon and Manesar has caused a spurt in the prices of lands, particularly those located along national highways and also in those along some link roads.
According to the reports available with the real estate agents at Gurgaon and Faridabad, the land rates have crossed Rs 50 lakh to Rs 75 lakh per acre. During the last few months, no-objection certificates have been issued to some dozen parties to develop farmhouses-cum weekend resorts in the Haryana part of the National Capital Region (NCR). Such NOCs are not granted for lands situated within 2 kms of the Kundli- Manesar-Palwal multi-lane global corridor (under construction) and for land pieces which are less than 2.5 acres in size. These farm houses or de-stressing resorts are, no doubt, eating into the green lungs of this prime region.
According to an executive of the Federation of Estate Consultants of NCR (Foenc) while earlier, the first choice of a VIPs and the affluent class of the national capital was the areas near Chhatarpur and the neo-rich had engulfed the prime fertile land on Faridabad-Sohna road and Sohna-Taoru road touching the KMP corridor, now Delhiites are sourcing land along other roads in the region.
The first VIP to have developed his rural retreat was former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, at Bhondsi, on the Gurgaon-Sohna road. But later, the neo-rich began acquiring big chunks of fertile agricultural land from Kundli to Karnal (via Sonipat and Panipat) to build farmhouses.
In a related development, the tourism department of Haryana has also initiated steps to promote ‘farm tourism’ in the NCR, conforming to the recently revised norms in this regard.
It is now official that Haryana’s tourism department has identified some 20 farms for the public-private partnership initiative. The farmhouse owners have committed to providing boarding and lodging facilities to tourists at reasonable rates.
