Town and Country Planning (amendment) Bill introduced in

Vidhan Sabha Shimla, Aug 24 (PTI) Himachal Pradesh Urban DevelopmentMinister Sudhir Sharma today introduced the Town and CountryPlanning (Amendment) Bill seeking to regularise illegalconstructions "as is where is" basis. The Bill provides for regularisation of illegalconstructions in Municipal and planning areas in the stateeven in the cases in which building plans have not beenapproved at all. However, there would be no exemption for regularisation ofconstructions in green areas and heritage areas, encroachedlands and pockets kept for parks, sewerage or other facilitiesand the parking converted into other use would not beregularised except in cases where alternate equivalent andexcess space is available for parking. The regularisation fee would be very nominal, Rs 800 persquare mts would be charged in case of deviation from buildingplan within Municipal areas and the same would be half in casebuildings outside municipal areas. In case no permission had been taken for development, theregularisation fee would be Rs 1200 per sq mts in Municipalareas and Rs 600 per sq mts in areas outside the Municipallimits. The regularisation fee would be doubled in case ofcommercial, hotel, tourism, industrial or other use. Introducing the Bill, Urban Development minister said thatthe government had tried to address the issue ofregularisation of unauthorised building from constructionsraised in violation of the Act by bringing retention policiesfrom time to time. Under the said retention policies/guidelines, 8198 casesof unauthorised construction were received out of which 2108were retained and 6090 are yet to be regularised and atpresent there were 13,000 unauthorised buildings upto March2016 and demolition of such a large number of unauthorisedconstructions was neither feasible nor desirable as it wouldresult in undue harm to owners and occupants. PTI PCL MNGMNG