Responding to a demand of the realty sector, the Government of Gujarat announced latest, the new General Development Control Regulations (GDCR) a common set of rules for the construction in urban areas across the Gujarat state! However, these common rules are not applicable to the capital city Gandhinagar!
Currently, there are 7 municipal corporations & 157 municipalities which have their own development control rules & regulations. According to the earlier promise to realtors, the state government has notified common GDCR for all cities, including 8 municipal corporations, urban development authorities, & 162 municipalities. The reason behind it is that the realtors had repeatedly complained about the different GDCR in different cities & municipalities which had led to a lot of corruption, as well as the poor town planning as local officials enjoyed the excessive discretionary power!
Nitin Patel (Deputy chief minister) says, “This decision will facilitate the planned development in the entire Gujarat state.”
Nitin Patel also added, “We have adopted the Ahmedabad GDCR model for all cities.”
Changes in Gujarat General Development Control Regulations
Now onwards there will be a uniform FSI & Rules regarding the permissible building heights in all cities, municipalities & industrial areas. Also, the areas under the urban development authorities will come under the GDCR.
The State capital Gandhinagar has been kept out of the ambit of the common regulations as it has its own GDCR required for the mega projects! Under new rules, the maximum permissible building height for the urban areas in earthquake-prone zones like Bhuj, Anjar, Bhachau, Mandvi, Rapar & Gandhidham will not exceed to 10m, while the cities like Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar & Junagadh will have certain relaxations as these cities have narrow lanes & less scope of road expansion. Referring to the norms under the common GDCR, at present these were allowed in Rajkot & Ahmedabad. Now the Surat & other cities will also get the benefits.”
According to new regulations, in cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Junagadh & Jamnagar the Floor Space Index (FSI) of 1.8 would be provided free of cost & for extra 0.9 FSI, one would have to pay 40% of the Jantri rates!
For the municipalities which do not have the development plan (DP) will be allowed buildings with only 16.5 m maximum height, while those which have development plans will be permitted buildings up to 30 m.
In the cities, the construction up to 25 meters would be allowed on plots adjoining roads of width between 12 to 18 m,
45 m height for roads of width between 10 to 40 meters &
70 m for roads with more width than 40 meters,
However, the height allowed would be only 15 meters for roads with less width than 12 meters.
The enforcement of common GDCR is likely to step up the pace of construction work in various urban areas of Gujarat.