The Urban Land Ceiling Act was a law in India, that was passed in 1976. The stated purpose of the law is "bringing about an equitable distribution of land in urban agglomerations to subserve the common good."

Consequences

In a real world scenario, monopoly of land can take place when people, entities and corporate companies, with access to huge capital can occupy vast tracts of land, hoard it, make it scarce and use this scarcity to control demand - supply of land However this is problem is compounded due to the fact that governments from 1992 till today refused to develop lands quickly based on growth and demand, much like Germany where timely development of land and releasing it to public allowed land to be affordable. The Act was repealed by Urban Land (Ceiling & Regulation) Repeal Act, 1999. The repeal Act had in-built commencement date on 11 January 1999, ''vide'' section 1(3), for Haryana, Punjab and the union territories. For other states, it was left to the state legislatures to decide the date of commencement. Accordingly, it has been implemented on 28 November 2007 in Maharashtra and 30 March 1999 in Gujarat. The repeal Act has been adopted in all states except Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and West Bengal. This act was repealed in November 2007 in the state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

. The repeal was a pre-condition to the state government with a grant under the

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was a massive city-modernization scheme launched by the Government of India under the Ministry of Urban Development. It envisaged a total investment of over $20 billion over seven years. ...

(JNNURM), to be used for major

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

development projects (like the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, the

Mumbai Metro Project Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

, the Bandra-Worli, the Worli-Nariman Point sealink and the

Mumbai Urban Transport Project The Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), is a project formulated by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to bring about improvement in the traffic and transport situation in the Mumbai metropolitan region with the assist ...

-II).The Hindu Business Line : Maharashtra may repeal Urban Land Ceiling Act
/ref> However, there is still considerable confusion in the process required for the clearance of land for buildings; the repeal has not had much impact on the ground. The Maharashtra Government has purchased large tracts of land under provisions of this act, to be used to provide low-cost housing to the common people. However, this land continues to lie vacant.

References

{{reflist Urban planning in India Acts of the Parliament of India 1976 Property law in India