Constructing houses: Bill passed to remove devlpnt fees

Kolkata: The West Bengal Town and Country (Planning and Development) Amendment Bill, 2023 was passed in the Assembly on Friday with an objective to lift the burden of ‘development charges’ on those constructing a house in wards 1-100 under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).

State Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department minister Firhad Hakim in the Assembly said there was a disparity in the development charges and hence the main objective behind the amendment of the Bill is to streamline the process.

“Development fee was introduced by the Kolkata Improvement Trust (KIT) for raising funds in wards 1-100. Development fee was not applied in added areas. We felt that there must be some parity between the two, hence it was decided to omit the development fees. KIT was later merged with Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA),” Hakim said.

He also hit out at the erstwhile CPI(M) government saying that there were much irregularities spotted during the Left regime when development fee was collected arbitrarily while issuing building plan sanctions. We had specified the development fees saying that one will not be able to charge beyond a certain limit, Hakim added.