Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jun 18:

Real estate developers in the Odisha capital now have a fresh problem on their hands; they cannot sell land without an approved Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) plan. .

land grabBDA has made it clear that criminal proceedings would be initiated against the seller of the land and they could be arrested if they violate this clause if a buyer complains about a plot sale without an approved plan.

The new rules make it mandatory for the buyers to keep 40 percent of the total land free for community use and allow construction to be carried out only in the remaining 60 percent space.

“Without the BDA approved layout plan, several customers face problems in construction of their house after buying the land.  We have decided to enforce BDA approved layout plan at the time of buying to make it easier for them. We have also written to the Revenue department to arrange for verification of this plan at the sub-registrar office, so that sales deed and conversion to Gharabari kism after the sale can be stopped if a customer or seller doesn’t have the plan,” said planning member of BDA Sudhiranjan Mohanty.

The new layout plan makes certain deviations from the previous plan. It ensures that the plot up for sale needs to allot space for road for the plot at its backyard, five percent reserved space for recreational area and the rest free space.

Furthermore, it ensures that if a person sells more than an acre of land or builds an apartment on a land

BDA would facilitate 30-feet roads to these plots.

“Earlier, we had made 20-feet roads mandatory. However, we discovered that space to be too little for drainage, sewerage, electricity poles etc. We have amended the law to make 30-feet road mandatory henceforth,” Mohanty added.

It may be noted that while there were 214 villages and 419 Sq Kms of land under BDA at the outset, it came
up to 1110 sq kms in 2011 after 351 villages were brought under it. As of now, there are 556 villages and 1529 sq kms of land under BDA jurisdiction.

Land sellers from many of these villages brought under BDA after 2011 continue to sell land without abiding by BDA guidelines causing much headache for the buyers at a later stage.