Rajasthan plans to amend fire cess policy

To strengthen the financial structure of fire department, the state town planning department has proposed to amend the policy for collection of fire cess. At present fire cess is calculated as per the floor area ratio (FAR). The expert committee, constituted to review building bylaws, has decided to calculate it as per the total built up area (BAR) of the building. A senior town planner at urban development and housing (UDH) department informed, “The proposal to amend the existing rules to calculate the fire cess as per BAR and not FAR was approved in a recent meeting. The rule will be implemented after receiving nod from the UDH minister.” This would increase the revenue of local bodies as the developers will have to pay cess on open areas such as staircases, galleries which were excluded till now.