Facing a widening revenue deficit after scrapping its Land Pooling Scheme, the cash-strapped Punjab government is reviving its 1997 Optimum Utilisation of Vacant Government Lands (OUVGL) Scheme.

Under the revamped plan, prime unutilised state properties will be handed over to PUDA for development into residential, commercial and industrial projects, which will later be auctioned to generate funds for infrastructure and welfare schemes.

Punjab Chief Secretary KAP Sinha has taken a meeting of all administrative secretaries to discuss how to implement the scheme and identify land or properties that can be transferred to PUDA for auctioning it later.

This will help the state, reeling under a financial crisis, to earn the much-needed revenue. Under OUVGL scheme, both SAD-BJP and Congress governments in the past also earned the revenue. The state government proposes to use revenue thus earned for capital expenditure (infrastructure development) and also to run its populist schemes, including implementation of the Rs 1,100 per month for women.

Though Punjab has earned Rs 30,662.64 crore as revenue between April and July, the expenditure is Rs 41,352.80 crore. This means that the revenue deficit in four months is a whopping Rs 10,690.16 crore. The state has also raised a loan of Rs 12,191.52 crore during this period to meet its expenses.

Considering the dire financial straits and the withdrawal of the Land Pooling Scheme, through which the government was targeting a revenue of Rs 8,000 crore during this fiscal, the government has found OUVGL scheme as a potential scheme to earn revenue.

A senior functionary in the government said most of the unutilised government land was encroached upon by unscrupulous elements and all department heads had been instructed to identify all vacant and unutilised land, including the encroached, within three to four days. “We will first have a pool of such land ready and develop it in different places, based on the demand for housing, commercial or industrial use,” he said.