Context:

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has finalized the structure of the company that will be tasked with selling land parcels under the land banks.

Land Banking

• Land banking is the practice of aggregating parcels of land for future sale or for development.
• A land aggregator aggregates land by tracking the geographical and topological locations, which are primed for investment, based on social infrastructure and demographic factors.
• Land aggregators buy land, wait for the land value to appreciate and then, sell the same to developers, investors, and other interested parties for a substantial profit.

Organizations that engage in land banking

• Federal, state, and local governments.
• Businesses
• Universities and non-profit entities
• Individuals

Different types of land banking models in India

• Buying and selling
• Joint development model
• Land leasing model.

Landholding in India

• The average size of land holdings in India is 11,500 SQ meters.
• More than two-thirds of owners holding fewer than 40,000 SQ meters of cultivable land.
• In rural India, over 56 percent of the households own no land.

Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM)

• The organization deals with all matters relating to the management of Central Government investments in equity including disinvestment of equity in Central Public Sector Undertakings.
• DIPAM is working as one of the Departments under the Ministry of Finance.

Repository of land bank

• For the purpose of investors’ ease to identify sites for setting up manufacturing units, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry launched a one-stop repository of the country’s land bank comprising.
• Information on available and vacant plots.
• Satellite view of the terrain.
• Heat maps on the natural resources there.