Ashok Chavan wants fresh rules for land allotment

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan wants to go in for a serious rehaul of land allotment and town planning norms.

Mumbai: After deciding on a review of almost 100 land-related decisions in Mumbai taken by the state before November 2010, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan wants to go in for a serious rehaul of land allotment and town planning norms.

HT Image

The aim: to make land deals by the government more transparent. Chavan will give the two-member committee to be appointed by the state to probe the Adarsh scam the mandate to review and recommend fresh land allotment norms.

One of the important terms of reference for the committee will be to suggest allotment procedures that will minimise the government’s discretionary powers and leave little room for corruption in granting land to private parties.

“The committee will be asked to recommend a clear-cut procedure for allotments, minimising the discretionary powers of the revenue minister and even the CM. This includes land allotments for housing societies,” said a bureaucrat on condition of anonymity.

HT had, on Monday, reported Chavan’s decision to put on hold files on land proposals cleared, or in the process of being cleared, by the urban development department and the revenue department.

As some of these decisions pertain to FSI hikes, the government is also likely to freeze certain development control rules that have allowed hiking of FSI for schemes such as public parking.