The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Number of building plan permits issued dips

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 17, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Number of building plan permits issued dips

Aloysius Xavier Lopez

— Photo: M.Vedhan

Licensed surveyors claim that many of the buildings being constructed in Chennai are without the permission of the Chennai Corporation, because of the reluctance of applicants to pay road cutting charges.

CHENNAI: The number of building plan permissions issued by the Chennai Corporation has reduced considerably, because of the reluctance of applicants to pay the exorbitant road-cutting charges.

According to Corporation officials, around 55 per cent of the applications received after April 2009 have been given permission for construction of buildings after collecting the road-cutting charges and other fees.

In the period, 2,722 permissions have been issued of the 4,871 applications. Normally, more than 75 per cent of the applicants get permissions.

Many applicants are finding it difficult to pay the road-cutting charges as it is much higher than the building fees, said S.Balakrishnan, a licensed surveyor.

Mayor M.Subramanian said the civic body started to collect the road-cutting charges before issuing approval to make the process simpler for people. The collection of road-cutting charges in advance started in February 2009 and applicants are required to remit the money directly to the Corporation now. The amount collected as road-cutting charges for issuing planning permits would be generally around Rs.5,000, he said. However, it may increase depending on the area of road cut for providing the service.

An applicant in Ayanavaram had been asked to pay Rs.35,300 last month as road-cutting charges for a 24-ft road, said Suresh, a licensed surveyor. Another applicant in West Mambalam had to pay Rs.36,500 for a 60-ft road. The collection of road-cutting charges by the civic body after April 2009 is Rs.2.61 crore.

“The charges in the 10 zones of the Corporation are different and there is lack of uniformity in all zones as the process is decentralised,” said Mr. Suresh. The decentralisation and the intention of the Corporation for collecting the charges during approval is good but it should not deter people from seeking approval of the civic body, he said. According to many licensed surveyors of the civic body, a chunk of the people who are submitting planning permission applications to the Chennai Corporation are not able to remit the money charged as road-cutting charges.

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