Announcement of IIT jacks up realty prices in Jagti

In the backdrop of the snow-clad Pir Panjal range and NHAI’s neatly laid highway that meanders along hillocks, at the first look, it resembles an exotic and picturesque place of Europe.
And announcement of setting up an elite Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) has increased the prices of realty in the Jagti area of Nagrota.
The government has already identified the land for the IIT at Khanpur in the vicinity of Jagti.
“The four-lane National Highway 1A (NH1A) project had already changed the look of this area and now the IIT is all set to bring development to at least six villages located along the highway,” said Surinder Sharma, a resident of Jadi village.
Nagrota is an Army cantonment, which has a Sainik School as well.
“The highway, which has provided connectivity to Jagti, Jadi, Tanda, Karli, Tammi and Pangrain, has increased the value of our land manifold,” said Surinder Sharma.
He informed that villagers in six villages along the highway had stopped selling their land holdings because they knew that the highway and IIT would change their socio-economic condition.
While Nagrota had become an Army cantonment and would no more be part of the 300-km Jammu-Srinagar national highway, this four-lane highway had really given a boost to economic activities, said Surinder Sharma.
Ram Kumar, resident of Panjgrain, said, “Development was an alien term to people in this area but the highway and IIT have changed our world.”
Before the four-lane highway, villages on the axis had a single-lane dilapidated road.
Ram Kumar said many of the villagers had already set up eateries, restaurants, bars and other businesses by the highway.
“Once the IIT is set up here, prices of realty will go up further. To put it frankly none is interested to sell his land along the highway because the people know that a goldmine in the form of an IIT will soon come up at Khanpur,” he added.
Revenue officials regularly visit the area and people know that the entire look of the area would undergo a major sea change, he said.
Before the four-lane highway, six villages had been a sleepy area where people never thought to invest in real estate.
Gaurav, a resident of Jagti, said satellite township of Jagti for internally displaced Kashmiri Pandits, would also get immensely benefited by the IIT.
There are nearly 8,000 houses in the six villages.
Chief Secretary BR Sharma has already asked various government departments, including Forest, PDD, PHE, PWD and Higher Education, to finalise requisite modalities at their end so that work on the IIT starts at the earliest.