50% fail to register for plot regularisation scheme

About 50% of an estimated 17 lakh unapproved plots have not come under the ambit of regularisation scheme due to the exorbitant fee for regularisation and complex process involved in the amnesty scheme that came to a close on Friday. The state government has not decided on extending the 18-month-old scheme that has witnessed four extensions since it was launched on May 4, 2017. According to sources, 8.5 lakh applications seeking to regularise unapproved plots and layouts were filed across Tamil Nadu. Of these, about 7.7 lakh fell under the limits of the directorate of town and country planning (DTCP), which covers the entire state except the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA). The rest are located in Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) areas, including Greater Chennai Corporation which alone accounts for nearly 26,000 applications for regularization of unapproved plots. There are about 17 lakh unapproved plots in the state, sources added. The CMDA alone has earned Rs 45 crore through scrutiny fees, development charges and regularisation fees. Exorbitant development and regularisation charges for village panchayats and town panchayats are one major reason that has made the scheme unattractive for beneficiaries. Vice-chairman of the Builders’ Association of India's Southern Centre Ramaprabhu said uniform development and regularisation fees have been fixed for different segments of local bodies. For instance, the development charges for all village panchayats have been fixed at Rs 25 per square metre and Rs 75 per square metre in town panchayats, where majority of unapproved plots exist. “This has put off a chunk of unapproved plot owners in the rural pockets as the charges that they need to shell out to regularise their plots matched the cost of their properties. Instead of fixing a uniform slab for local bodies, the government should have adopted the guideline value for deriving the charges it would have brought down the fee on various charges and evoked an interest among people to join the scheme in rural areas,” he said. The cumbersome process has also left people high and dry. Residents of Chennai are yet to get respite from the process of being made to run behind No Objection Certificates (NOCs) especially for those layouts which need NOCs from the Public Works Department (PWD). “We went to meet the PWD officials to receive NOCs for our plots but there was no response about the same. They kept dilly-dallying, asking us to come another day,” said G Gandhi, treasurer of OMR Gandhi Nagar Resident Welfare Association, who added that was the responsibility of the local body ( Greater Chennai Corporation, in this case) to get the NOC.