The much-hyped costliest land deal of the country has been severely truncated. The Noida Development Authority has finally accepted the Faridabad-based developer BPTP's proposal to award just 21 acres of commercial plot instead of the 95 acres, which the developer had bagged with a winning bid of Rs 5,006 crore in March last year.

"The Noida authority has agreed to BPTP's proposal to surrender the 95-acre commercial plot, but of that land, it has been allotted a 21-acre plot in Sector 94, Noida,” Lalit Srivastava, chairman, Noida Development Authority said. Srivastava said the land has been allotted in lieu of the Rs 1,300 crore deposited by BPTP as payment towards bid amount.

“The Noida authority has deducted Rs 130 crore of the total amount deposited by BPTP,” he said.

The recent Uttar Pradesh government's policy allows a developer to either get its payment plan rescheduled and seek moratorium on their payment plans or surrender the plot. If the developer decides to surrender the plot, then it forfeits 10 per cent of the amount deposited and gets land against the payment made earlier.

The remaining chunk of 74 acres of commercial plot will be sold through a competitive bidding. “It's a commercial chunk of land and will be awarded through a process of competitive bidding only. It is too premature to give out the time frame of the next bidding,” he said.

The deal in terms of per acre has worked out quite costly. In its original form, its per acre cost would have come to Rs 52.7 crore. Today, after the company has received 21 acres for Rs 1,300 crore (notwithstanding the Rs 130 crore forfeited), the land came at a price of Rs 61.9 crore per acre.