Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will now sanction building plans on land area up to 210 square metres, without insisting upon submission of Record of Rights or mutation certificate from BL and LRO in the added areas of the civic body. Wards 101 to 144 of the KMC will come under the aegis of this. "The matter has already been approved at the meeting of the Members, Mayor-in-Council (MMiCs) that was held on October 23. It is expected to be passed at the monthly meeting scheduled on November 15," said a senior official of the Building department of KMC. The Building department, however, will have to confirm certain norms before giving the sanction. The assessment record of KMC has to be consulted if any waterbody, pond or its bank is mentioned in the deed of conveyance; the land should not be vested or government acquired land and this should be confirmed from the assessment record. The land should also be a buildable site and there should not be any physical presence of waterbody. This should be confirmed through physical inspection. Besides this, the land should not be within the jurisdiction of East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) Management Authority. EKW is a Ramsar site. In case the system is locked for NOC from PMU (Project Management Unit), the files should be sent to the Environment department (erstwhile PMU) for necessary clearance and unlocking the system to proceed for sanction. "If we find that any sort of waterbody or bank of a waterbody is mentioned in the deed of conveyance, our department will send the information to the concerned BL & LRO that we are going to sanction a plan at the relevant mouja, dag or khatian. If the latter has any objection in this matter, he/she has to send objection within 15 working days. We will give sanction if no objection is filed by BL & LRO in the stipulated time," the official added. It may be mentioned that in 1985, when the Left Front board took over KMC, thousands of high-rises came up on reclaimed land in Behala, Jadavpur and Garden Reach, known as added areas in KMC parlance. These buildings did not have any sanction plan. However, when Prasanta Chatterjee was the Mayor, he tried to regularise these buildings twice in 1992 and 1994 and requested the owners to get the plans of these structures sketched by a Licensed Building Surveyor (LBS). The response of the owners, however, was poor. Under the current step, the owners will have proper plans for their houses and KMC will have control over them.

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