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While the official market value was recorded at ₹7.78 crore, the registry document mentioned a transaction value of ₹5.5 crore.
Representative Image: Road construction project in India( (Image: Pixabay))50 civil servants from across the country jointly purchased an agricultural land in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh on the same day in 2022; two years later the price of that land has risen by 11 times, according to an investigation by Dainik Bhaskar.
Mint has not independently verified the veracity of the claims in the newspaper's report.
The land purchase came to light during a probe into immovable property returns (IPR) filed by officers in Madhya Pradesh. 50 IAS and IPS officers, belonging to MP, Maharashtra, Telangana and Haryana cadres, jointly bought agricultural land in Guradi Ghat village of Bhopal’s Kolar area in April 2022.
Just 16 months after the land deal, a ₹3200-crore Western Bypass project was approved through the same area. Ten months later, the land use was changed from agricultural to residential. The result: land prices shot up by nearly 11 times.
No housing society has been registered for the project so far, the newspaper reported. Rules dictate that the land must either be transferred to a registered society or plots must be officially allotted before any residential development begins.
Understanding the chronology
On 4 April 2022, 50 civil servants jointly bought 2.023 hectares of agricultural land through a single registry document.
While the official market value was recorded at ₹7.78 crore, the registry document mentioned a transaction value of ₹5.5 crore.
In the IPR documents, the buyers described the purchase as an investment made by "like-minded officers." However, records reportedly show that behind the 50 shares, there were actually 41 real buyers.
On 31 August 2023, i.e. 16 months after the purchase, the Madhya Pradesh cabinet approved the Western Bypass project. According to the current alignment, the bypass passes just 500 metres away from the land.
In June 2024, i.e. ten months after the bypass approval, the agricultural land was officially reclassified as residential.
In 2022, the five-acre plot (around 2.17 lakh sq ft) was bought at nearly ₹82 per sq ft. After land use change in June 2024, the rate rose to around ₹557 per sq ft, taking the estimated value of the land to about ₹12 crore.
Current land prices in the area are estimated between ₹2500 and ₹3000 per sq ft, pushing the total value of the same land to nearly ₹55 crore to ₹65 crore.
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