The city Corporation is considering amendments to the Interim Development Order (IDO), which governs the awarding of building permits and all kinds of land use in the city, in the absence of a sanctioned master plan. The amendments could be beneficial to those who were having difficulties in getting their building permit applications cleared as their land was wrongly marked as paddy field or meant for public use.
The Town Planning Department, which is now in the final stages of preparation of a draft master plan, had recently written to the Corporation to consider these amendments.
“The land use patterns in the IDO were decided based on the data collected from cadastral surveys. It does not have details on plot subdivisions or other finer details. The land use is not clearly demarcated. So, areas marked as paddy fields need not be so. If the owner of such a land submits a building permit application, it is likely to be rejected. As of now, the IDO does not say what should be done if it is not actually paddy land or that set aside for other public purposes. So, some amendments could be brought about to achieve some clarity on this,” said a town planning official.
The city Corporation's town planning standing committee chairman Palayam Rajan said that the committee is set to take up these proposed amendments for discussions, after which it will be presented in the Corporation council.
“Quite a few people have come to us saying that they have been unable to get building permits as their land is supposed to be paddy land or in some specific zone, even though they are not. In such cases, we usually send them for concurrence to the Regional Town Planner’s office. With these amendments, we can take the decision at the Corporation itself and avoid the delays faced by the public,” said Mr.Rajan.
Though the draft master plan is almost ready, it is unlikely to be discussed and finalised in the city Corporation council before the upcoming local body elections. The IDO is thus expected to be in force at least till the end of this year.