British national indicted

Case of Drug Peddling

Chandigarh, September 12Additional District and Sessions Judge Lalit Batra today framed charges against a British national, Napper Ned ’O Conner Tandy, in connection with a drug peddling case.
The crime branch of the Chandigarh Police had on July 16 arrested the British national on charges of possessing charas and psychotropic tablets.
Nineteen-year-old Tandy, a resident of London, was arrested from Sector-38 West during a checking drive.
The accused was riding a motorcycle without helmet. On being signalled to stop, Tandy tried to flee. During search, the police found 40 gram charas and psychotropic tablets from his pocket.
Tandy was on a tourist visa valid till November 8. He had arrived in India on May 22 and purchased a Bullet motorcycle (HR 12 E 7183) from a mechanic before heading to Manali in Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh.

Welcome to New Chandigarh

 It’s official -- green signal to urban estate

Mohali, September 12
The much-awaited 740-plot phase I of the Mullanpur urban estate will be floated on September 21 and applicants will be given a month to apply under the scheme. The site is located 7 km from the PGI in Chandigarh.
The decision follows approval to the project by the executive committee of the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) during a meeting under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Secretary SC Agrawal.
For the first time, applications will also be received online. The draw of lots will be held on November 30. The letter of intent will be issued within a month of the draw of lots.
Allottees will be given 120 days from the date of draw of lots to deposit 95 per cent of the cost of the plot, a decision taken to keep speculators out.
To solve the problem of finance, GMADA is contemplating a tripartite agreement between banks, GMADA and allottees so that the cost can be paid within the period specified.
A senior GMADA official said after past experiences like Aerocity, it was decided to limit the schedule of payment of 95 per cent of plot cost to four months, between December, 2011, and March, 2012, from the date of draw of lots.
The letter of allotment would be issued once the 95 per cent of the cost was paid. In case of Aerocity, over three lakh applicants, mostly from outside Punjab and speculators, had applied and the margin money increased prices to an unimaginable level. GMADA Chief Administrator Sarvjit Singh said he could comment only after minutes of the meeting were issued.
As per the draft, the scheme was for bona fide residents of Punjab and Chandigarh. Employees of the Punjab and Haryana High Court were also eligible to apply. Applications would also be received online this time. This yardstick would apply to future housing schemes as well.

Project at a glance

n GMADA allows end users to buy property straightaway
n Only for bona fide Punjab and Chandigarh residents
n Those who own or have been allotted a plot are not eligible
n 100 sq yd, 125 sq yd, 150 sq yd, 200 sq yd, 250 sq yd, 300 sq yd, 400 sq yd, 500 sq yd plots
n Prices between Rs 15,000 per sq yd (for 100 sq yd) and Rs 19,000 per sq yd (for 500 sq yd)
n 95 per cent of plot cost to be paid within 120 days of date of draw of lots.

One more held in NRI murder case

Batala, September 12
The police has arrested one more accused, Rajbir Singh Bajwa (alias Raju), in the infamous murder case of Canada-based NRI Gurinder Singh Gill.
With today’s arrest, three of the four accused, including BJP councillor Rajbir Singh Bhullar and his accomplice Jarnail Singh, a Punjab police head constable — the duo arrested yesterday — have been taken into custody. Yadvinder Singh Bhullar, brother of the main accused Rajbir Bhullar, is still at large.
Gill was gunned down in broad daylight in front of the busy court complex, barely 50 metres away from the SSP’s residence, on Friday.
Batala SSP Gurkirpal Singh said several teams had been constituted to nab Yadvinder. Bajwa’s arrest, however, remains shrouded in mystery as a top police official on anonymity disclosed that the accused surrendered before the cops last evening. But officials say he was arrested following a raid.
Also, the Gurdaspur NRI unit’s executive committee held a meeting and condemned the murder.

GMADA may lower reserve price

Mohali, September 11

With the aim of attracting greater public participation in the sale of commercial and residential freehold sites in the town, the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) is expected to lower the reserve price of the properties to be put under the hammer at its upcoming auction. The price is likely to be reduced by 10 per cent, it is learnt.
Dismayed by the poor response to its last two auctions, GMADA had been taking up the issue with the Punjab government. The auctions, held in February 2010 and in September 2009, were lackluster due to the high reserve price. In the former auction only a dozen of the 45 commercial sites on offer could be sold and in the latter only 17 of the 69 commercial sites went under the hammer, with residential properties finding no takers.
To enable reduction in the reserve price, GMADA has reworked the standard formula that allows officials to decide upon the reserved price of a specific site. The plan for a major shift in the auction norms is expected to be approved by the authority’s executive committee at its meeting scheduled on Monday.
Sources close to GMADA said it has been proposed that the reserve price of unsold sites and the price of the sites that have been sold would be clubbed while calculating the lowest price to start bidding for a property in a specific sector. This would automatically bring down the reserve price of a site, which would vary for different sectors, they added.
GMADA chief administrator Sarvjit Singh said the proposal to recalculate the reserve price of auctioned sites was under consideration. “The final decision would be known only after the necessary approval by the authority”, he added.
It has been learnt a proposal to demand full payment of an auctioned plot within 90 days of the respective auction was also under active consideration. Presently, after payment of 25 per cent of the auctioned price of a commercial site within one month of an auction, the balance 75 per cent payment has to be made in four yearly installments. Accepting payment within 90 days would reduce litigation as most of the disputes have been related to payments. Since the move is likely to face adverse reaction from investors, it has reportedly not found favour with senior Punjab government officials.

FULL BID PAYMENT MULLED

A proposal — on the pattern of the UT estate office — to demand full payment of an auctioned plot within 90 days of the respective auction is being considered by GMADA.

Recession scuppers auctions in Chandigarh City

Realty pangs get real

Chandigarh, September 11
The ongoing recession in the real estate sector has taken its toll on the auction of commercial and residential sites in Chandigarh. With the market going through one of the worst phases in its history, end users and investors have been waiting for nearly two years for an auction to be held.
And, in the process, the UT administration is losing crores of rupees in revenue that it could have earned by way of auction and collection of lease money from commercial properties.
Though the UT administration had planned an auction of residential and commercial properties last year it was cancelled at the eleventh hour.
Given the city’s relatively high standard of living and its emergence as a prime retail destination, the auction of commercial and residential sites always evoked a huge response from end users and investors here. However, officials in the UT administration feared the recession would cost it dearly as the expected response in an auction might well be “below average”. “This coupled with the provision of making full payment in three months’ time could prove to be a damper for an auction to be held at a time when the property market was passing through a crisis”, a senior official said.
The last auction held in the city - in December 2009 - was no different with the average price fetched by a residential property working out to Rs 74,820 per square yard. In fact, a five ‘marla’ (272.25 square feet) plot in Sector 32 was sold for a whopping Rs 1.4 crore at an average price of about Rs 1.06 lakh a square yard.
Despite the fact that commercial property in the city is being sold on leasehold, the average price worked out to be Rs 2.74 lakh per square yard.While conceding the recession was a major reason for the delay in auctioning property, an official said an auction was “overdue” and would be held before the end of this fiscal.

UT LOSING CRORES

Due to delay in auction, the UT administration is losing crores of rupees in revenue that it could have earned by way of auction and collection of lease money from commercial properties.