BMC will get sizeable revenue from premium….Stuti Shukla
Municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar, when asked if he felt a watered down version of his DCR draft was approved, said he was happy it got approved in as little as five months.
Kumar, who was appointed last year to replace Swadheen Kshatriya, was seen as someone who could ‘clean up’ the corruption within the civic body. Revised DCRs that would make builders pay for additional FSI consumed for additional features, such as balconies, flower beds and ducts, is one of the major policy changes drafted by Kumar.
While Kumar had proposed levying 100 per cent premium for such areas that were earlier free of FSI, the state approved a policy brings this down to 50 per cent. Redevelopment buildings and slum rehabilitation projects will not be charged this premium.
“I am happy because the BMC will still receive a sizeable revenue from this premium. While earlier estimation was Rs 3,000 crore, we may now receive a little over Rs 1,000 crore, which is still better than letting all the profit go to the builders,” he said.
The provision of having a minimum gap of six metres between two buildings on a plot area of more than 500 sqm has been relaxed to 1.5 m for each building in case of redevelopment of cessed buildings. “But again 83 per cent of the cessed buildings are on a plot less than 500 sqm, so it is not a major change,” he said.
However, Kumar did not comment about the increase of maximum additional FSI from 25 per cent, as proposed by him, to 35 per cent approved by the state. “The inequality in using additional FSI will be eliminated since it will be uniform for every builder now.”