CHENNAI: There are more than three lakh unauthorised buildings in Chennai, but till now only 352 have sought amnesty under the regularisation scheme launched by the government which already has given three deadlines.
With less than a month left for the third deadline, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has till now received only 3,471 applications for regularisation of unauthorised buildings, according to official sources.
Sources indicated that of the 3,471 applications, only 352 applications have been received with regularisation fee and are being processed.
Tamil Nadu government introduced the amnesty scheme after notifying the rules on June 22 last year. The deadline lapsed on December 21, 2017 and only 35 persons had applied. As such the deadline was again extended till March 20, 2018. However, due to lack of interest, the deadline was further extended to June 19, 2018.
Sources said the amnesty scheme had few takers as the government had imposed multiple infrastructure and amenities charges as penalty before regularising the buildings. Sources blame it on a petition being filed in Madras High Court against the Building regularisation Scheme under Section 113-C. It is learnt that Madras High court has ordered that CMDA shall receive the applications, process them but not issue orders on them.
As per the rough estimate made in 2007, there were three lakh buildings in Chennai Metropolitan Area constructed unauthorisedly in deviation of the approved plan. The number would have gone up now .This is due to lack of action and the failure to fix the responsibility resulting in officials turning a blind eye.
Meanwhile under the regularisation of unauthorised plots and layouts, it was revealed that as of now 21,660 individual plot owners have registered for the regularization of unapproved individual plots online.
To regularise the unapproved plots in unapproved layouts, the local bodies within Chennai Metropolitan Area including Greater Chennai Corporation forwarded to CMDA requesting approve in-principle layout framework for 891 unapproved layouts of which CMDA approved 670 unapproved layouts.
Further, 404 layout promoters registered for regularisation of unapproved layouts through online. Of these, 117 layout promoters submitted to CMDA the particulars requesting regularisation of unapproved layouts.
It is learnt that CMDA had approved 23 unapproved layouts after undertaking due inspection, sources added.
Estimated number of unauthorized buildings is more than three lakh and applications received under the amnesty scheme is 3,471 with352 being processed.