Deadline for regularization extended

Times of India: Thiruvananthapuram: Wednesday, July 11, 2018.

The report was buried by LSG and TOI’s repeated applications through RTI had evoked a response that such a report was never submitted by the fourmember committee.

The state government, which had introduced heavy relaxation in compounding fee for regularization of unauthorized constructions in Kerala Municipality Building (Regularisation of Unauthorized Construction) Rules, 2018, and Kerala Panchayat

Building (Regularization of Unauthorized Construction) Rules, 2018, has been forced to extend the time-limit for filing applications for regularization due to low response. The amended rules had come into effect on February 20.

Although the government had initially set the deadline for receiving applications for regularization of unauthorized buildings on May 20, the deadline has been extended till November 16 due to tepid response.

The LDF government had amended regularization rules by steeply reducing the penalties, overruling the report submitted by a four-member expert committee on regularization of unauthorized constructions. The report was buried by LSG and TOI’s repeated applications through RTI had evoked a response that such a report was never submitted by the fourmember committee. The members of the committee and former LSG special secretary V K Baby (retd), however, had confirmed the submission of the report. The committee had recommended higher penalties for regularization of unauthorized constructions.

Even with a heavy drop in compounding fee, the government has not recorded any collection of fee for regularization of unauthorized constructions as per the data available by June. As per the rules, the secretary of local bodies shall maintain a register of all treasury remittances towards compounding fee and shall forward quarterly reports thereon to the government, however, no such remittance has been recorded in the state so far.

The district-level committees for processing the applications have not been convened in many places due to lack of applications.

In Thiruvananthapuram, less than 30 applications were received in four months, but all of them had to be returned either due to submission in wrong format or it involved violation of Wetland Act and Coastal Regulation Zone Act. In Kozhikode, 15 applications have so far been received. The officials associated with various urban local bodies say that they are awaiting a sizeable number of applications so that a district-level committee could be convened. The rules also mandate functioning of a monitoring committee to oversee the regularization process, however, the members did not comment on its functioning. In 2017, 821 unauthorized constructions were regularized in panchayat areas in the state with the highest regularizations done in Idukki — 558.

The present rates for regularization mark a steep drop from the fees which were in effect in 2014.

As per the 2014 rules, the basic compounding fee for single residential buildings was 10 times the permit fee and 1/20th of the fair value of land per sqm of the land multiplied by the total floor area of unauthorized construction. For residential buildings up to 300 sqm, the fee was 50% of the permit fee. The new rules have categorized unauthorized constructions and for single family residential buildings between 60sqm and 300 sqm, the compounding fee varies between Rs 3,000 and Rs 30,000. The basic compounding fee for other buildings as per new rules is 10 times the permit fee and 1/40th of fair value of land per square metre of the land multiplied by the total floor area of the unauthorized construction.