CHENNAI: The Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) has delegated more power to field officers for issuing planning permissions for residential, commercial and institutional buildings not exceeding 2,500 square metres. Earlier, the field officers had powers to issue planning permissions to residential, commercial and institutional buildings not exceeding 1,500 square metres only.
This comes after a request put forth by the Confederation of Real Estate Developer’s Associations of India (CREDAI) and other representations. However, this will not apply on the sensitive notified hill stations. S Sridharan, chairman of the Urban Development/Affordable Housing Committee, CREDAI National, told Express that the move will speed up the approval process and help in ease of doing business. “We have been trying for this for quite some time,” he said.
Interestingly, CREDAI wants DTCP to further relax the norms and give powers to the field officers to grant approvals not exceeding 3,000 square metres over a period of time. Sridharan said more relaxations in rules is also needed for hill stations. This also comes as the master plans for hill stations have not come out for a very long time.
“They are all old master plans. Only Kodaikanal has come out with a master plan. Plans for Ooty and Coonoor are pending as the earlier master plan has become outdated,” he said. Builders Association of India state secretary S Rama Prabhu said that it is a good move but the dwelling units have not been increased.
“Earlier, field officers had the power to grant approvals for 16 dwelling units in the 1,500 square metres. However, they have increased the delegation of power but they have not increased the dwelling units. We want it to be increased to 30 dwelling units,” he said. According to the circular by DTCP, the powers are applicable to industrial buildings in plots of approved industrial layouts of SIPCOT, SIDCO, and also other layouts.
New powers
DTCP has delegated more power to field officers for issuing planning permissions for residential, commercial and institutional buildings not exceeding 2,500 square metres. Earlier, their power was restricted to 1,500 square metres only