Owners must pay area circle rate fixed by Goa govt to regularise structures

Panaji: Goans who want to regularise their structures on govt or comunidade land will have to pay as per the minimum land price fixed by state govt. CM Pramod Sawant on Sunday said that govt will charge the owners of the structures as per the circle rate.

The cabinet has had one round of discussion on finalising the rate that would be charged to regularise the structures under the ‘Majhe ghar’ scheme. Govt set a cut-off date of 2014 to regularise structures on govt and comunidade land.

At present, the minimum land price is different in different talukas. Some ministers said that one rate should be finalised to regularise these structures, while some others said that when some talukas have a very low minimum land price, they are not interested in paying higher than the existing rate.

The cabinet discussed the proposal, but could not come to a final conclusion. The cabinet will once again review the rate of each taluka at the next meeting to take a final decision.

State govt wants to finalise the rate as soon as possible as it has decided that Union home minister Amit Shah will launch the Majhe ghar scheme on Saturday.

A senior officer said that all the minimum land prices of each taluka will be placed before the next cabinet, and the cabinet will take a final decision as the form would have to be sent for printing to regularise the structures.

To regularise illegal structures up to 1,000sqm in urban areas and 600sqm in rural areas, govt amended the Goa Regularisation of Unauthorised Construction Act, 2016.

As per the act, the built-up area of the unauthorised construction proposed to be regularised shall not exceed 200sqm in case such construction is meant for the personal residence of the applicant, 100sqm in case it is meant for commercial purpose of the applicant, 250sqm in case it is meant for residential-cum-commercial purposes of the applicant, and 400sqm in case such construction is meant for institutional purposes.

Earlier, govt amended the act to facilitate the regularisation of unauthorised construction in orchards and cultivable lands under Eco-Sensitive Zone-II. From time to time, govt has been granting extensions to people to apply for regularisation of their unauthorised construction.

As per the act, any person who carried out unauthorised construction in the property before Feb 28, 2014, can make an application.