Impact of Private Sector Urban Development Projects on Different Socioeconomic Groups in Haryana, India

This paper explores the explicit impacts of Private Urban Development (PUD) projects on the different socio-economic groups in Haryana, India. The Government of India and various State Governments gradually changed their stance from being ‘provider’ to act as ‘facilitator’ and ‘enabler’ in the urban development process in the post reform era. The Government of Haryana take a lead by enacting the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act (HDRUA) in 1975, became the only State in India to formally involve the corporate private sector in the acquisition, development and disposal of urban land. The Government of Haryana profoundly distributed licenses to the private developers in the state under the HDRUA Act since 1981. It is assumed this uncontrolled conversion of farmland into urban development project will result in enormous changes in the rural landscape. The PUD Projects have significant impact on the socio-economic characteristics of the affected villagers. The private developers mainly catered to the needs of higher income groups at the cost of excluding the lower section of the society in the development process. Current land management techniques have resulted in to scattered development in non-uniform manner having no phased development. The private development is heterogeneous, non-linear and patchy development as compared to public sector development. Increased land speculations by the private inferences have created a visual divide between the old and newly developed areas. There is a need to study the impacts of private sector led urban development projects in order to overcome adverse impacts of the development projects. A survey research methodology has been adopted for data collection. With this methodology primary data has been collected which is then triangulated with the secondary data. Systematic sampling was used to select the sample households. Various factors have been studied which gives the conclusive idea about the explicit impacts of private sector led urban development projects on the diverse socio-economic groups in