Poor response to scheme for unapproved plots

Residents in Coimbatore Corporation have been rather slow in utilising the State Government’s scheme to regularise unapproved plots and layouts, it appears. Of the 36,773 unapproved plots identified, the Corporation had received only 1,749 applications for regularisation of plots, said sources in the Town Planning wing of the Corporation.

The Central Zone had seen the lowest number of applications – 30. The sources said this was because there was a fewer unapproved layouts in the Zone vis-a-vis North, East, South or West Zones, all of which had addition of areas during the expansion of the Corporation boundary.

The East Zone saw over 750 applications, West Zone a little over 100, North Zone 700 and the South Zone around 200 applications.

One of the reasons for the fewer turnout of applicants was the steep increase in development charges, which was ₹. 500 a sq.m. for the Corporation, said S. Kanagasundaram, former president, Licensed Building Surveyors Association.

The ₹ 500 a sq.m. worked out to ₹. 46.46 a sq.ft., which was nine times more than what the then DMK government had fixed when it introduced a similar scheme in 2006. If the State Government was serious about popularising the scheme, it should further reduce the development charges, he demanded.

The other reason for the poor response was the Government demanding site plan, topo sketch and several such documents for which the applicants would be forced to take the help of licensed building surveyors, who would take at least a week to prepare the documents.

If the Government had simplified the application process, it could have seen better response.

K. Kathirmathiyon, Secretary, Coimbatore Consumer Cause, said there was no need for the Government to insist on encumbrance certificates, which was available online. If the Government had said that online EC would suffice, it would have spared the applicants of the trouble of getting those.

Likewise, at the municipal corporation level, the Government should have empowered assistants commissioners with approving the applications and not commissioners, as it had done so. There seemed to be no logic in asking the commissioners to clear the applications when it had empowered executive officers of town panchayats and block development officers for village panchayats to grant approvals.

Decentralisation, in short, should have made it easier for the applicants. Given the fact that the Corporation had 36,773 identified unapproved plots, it would be humanly impossible for the commissioner to clear all the files, he added.