NA permissions from the revenue department were a pre-requisite before any construction activity and were a major source of corruption.

There are more than 700 TP schemes in urban areas of Gujarat.

However, there is a rider.Land owners will have to approach the district collector for seeking a no-objection certificate (NOC) for the purpose of title clearance. The NOC is given after the revenue depart ment checks whether there are any dues, whether land is under the old or new tenure and other such conditions. The collector will have to issue NOCs within 30 days of application. The `No-NA ‘ rule announcement by the state government has come as an adrenaline shot for realtors across Gujarat. The decision will now put pressure on local town development authorities and the urban development department to finalize draft town planning schemes for urban growth areas surrounding major Gujarat cities. It is here that the state plans to unleash affordable housing schemes.

On Friday however, revenue department officials in the Ahmedabad collectorate discussed how procuring no objection certificates (NOC) will still be a tedious affair.“NOCs from the collectorate typically require checking 50 years of land ownership data along with other forms of re venue objections,“ rued a revenue department official.“None of this data is digitized.The 30-day clearance will not be possible in many cases.“

There are some questions about the announcement exempting building plan approvals for dwellings that are 125 sq m or less in size. “The rule requires that the architect preparing the 125 sq m building plan also file an affidavit that all approvals pertaining to the building are in place,“ said a senior town development official of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.“The architect also has to legally share the blame for any deviation. One has to see how many architects will be willing to take this risk.“ Owners may have to dole out more to the architect who prepares the plan, the official said.

Dipak Patel, the president of the Gujarat Institute of Housing and Estate Developers, said: “The new rule’s impact within city limits won’t be much.“ In the case of Ahmedabad’s peripheral areas there are more than 60 TP schemes pending finalization, he said.“Ahmedabad city has 40 such finalized TP schemes,“ he said. “Citizens in small towns will benefit as they no longer have to get their plans passed.“

National president of CREDAI, Jaxay Shah said: “Definite corrections for constructions under the General Development Control Regulation Dwelling 2 Type have been initiated.“

The affordable housing sector will receive the much needed fillip, he said.