In March 2024, the state of West Bengal in India announced its resolution to launch a program to supply land for the status quo of new industries, unused land in existing business districts, and closed commercial sites. Totaling approximately 1,739 acres, West Bengal government has established nine commercial parks, which have gained federal approval.
The unused parcels also include 193 acres in the Dhakeshwari cotton generator plot, 69 acres in the NESCO-owned Belur domain, and 132 acres of underutilized assets in Durgapur.
Major commercial parks offering available land include Budge Budge Industrial Park (9. 9 acres) in southern 24 Parganas, Ankurhati Park (8. 8 acres) in Domjur, Howrah, Haringhata Industrial Park (358 acres) in Nadia, and Haldia Industrial Park (306 acres). The Vidyasagar Industrial Park, located near Kharagpur, has attracted bicycle production companies, tapping into the vast underutilized area for commercial activities.
This is the first initiative of its kind in West Bengal, which aims to unlock the potential of underutilised commercial land for start-ups. The West Bengal state government facilitated the conversion of leased land in the 2022-2023 monetary year, subject to a constant payment structure. .
There is a pressing national call for the government to facilitate the creation of new businesses; Acquiring land for advertising remains a challenging process.
In 2023, the Telangana government announced plans to allow corporations and organizations to reuse underutilized government land. Approximately 1,800 acres of this unused land, allocated between 2004 and 2014, have been identified, resulting in notifications to the appropriate authorities.
The companies have been allocated a giant domain of unused land, located primarily in the regions formerly encompassed by Rangareddy, namely Serilingampally, Shamirpet, Ibrahimpatnam, Raviryala and Maheshwaram. However, it has been reported that some entities are employing only a fraction of the domain located and others are shutting down for various reasons.
Last year, the state of Telangana had welcomed the Foxconn group with a truly extensive land allocation of two hundred acres in Kongra Kalan, near the capital, Hyderabad. Lately, however, the state government has been embroiled in litigation related to the acquisition of a new piece of land for Hyderabad Pharma City.
While India is actively striving to develop its productive capacity in key sectors, the need for land to meet the growing demands for production and trade expansion is evident.
In January 2024, the Gujarat government presented a strategy to reclaim unused land in managed commercial parks through the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC). Under the initiative, industries that voluntarily surrender land will get a rebate of up to 75% of the commercial property market.
The state government’s start-up program is expected to help businesses facing difficulties in their business clusters and facilitate the redistribution of those business zones, thereby boosting economic expansion and job creation.
According to Ajay Patel, president of the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), the move is set to revive industries that have been prevented from starting operations, especially due to the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak and other factors, to abandon their operations and permits. Patel further noted that this measure would especially help other spaces to settle on plots deserted by the original owners.
The southern Indian state of Kerala has also taken a number of steps to tap into brownfield land. The state government is reportedly making plans to identify campus retail parks at its higher education establishments under the 2024 Campus Industrial Parks Program, which aims to address the shortage of land available for commercial purposes.
As Indian states look to expand their business activity, the government will come under increased pressure to ease regulatory restrictions.
India’s building criteria regulations prevent factories from making effective use of land dominance or expanding vertically. Industrial constructions face constraints imposed through construction criteria, resulting in the loss of productive land. Of those criteria, land losses come primarily from setbacks (mandatory strips of land around buildings), parking regulations, land canopy restrictions (which restrict the portion of land that can be covered by construction), and the land domain ratio (FAR, the ratio of a building’s built-up land domain to land ownership).
According to Prosperiti’s State of Regulation Report, which compares ten states for commercial land lost due to construction criteria and the opportunity charge for lost land, factories in India can lose more than 50% of their land due to construction criteria, forcing corporations to pay full price for part of the land use.
The report assesses the prices of micro, small, medium, giant and mega factories in ten states, taking into account land, financial and job losses. Calculations are based on the following plot sizes: micro – 150 m²; small – three hundred m²; medium – 1,000 m²; giant – 5,000 m²; and Mega – 10,000 m².
Haryana seems to be the least restrictive state, while Tamil Nadu is more accommodating to gigantic, mega-factories. Notably, Haryana allows factories of any size to use more than 50% of the land, while Odisha, Bihar and Delhi impose the maximum restrictions. regardless of the length of the factories. Of the states studied in the Prosperiti report, Haryana is the state comparable to Singapore.
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