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Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Thursday approved relaxations in the land transfer policy, thereby clearing roadblocks in transfer of government land. The move would remove delays in awarding concessions for infrastructure projects, besides speeding up the process of awarding of public private partnership (PPP) projects from this month onwards significantly, a PMO statement said. Early last year, a ban had been imposed on all transfer of government owned land to any entity except in cases where land was to be transferred from one government department to another. The Department of Economic Affairs was to prepare a comprehensive land transfer policy for government owned land. In case any department had to implement a project that required alienation of land either through lease, license or rent, it had to seek specific approval of the Cabinet. This was leading to long delays in awarding concessions for infrastructure projects, particularly PPP projects. With Thursday's decision, all cases of land transfer from Ministries to statutory authorities or PSUs will be allowed as also development and use of railway land by the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA). All PPP infrastructure projects - roads, railways, ports, civil aviation and metros - have some element of land alienation as the projects are often built on government owned land. The government continues to own the land that is leased or licensed out.

PM relaxes land transfer policy, infrastructural projects likely to speed up