Will impact fee resolve CG Road's problem?

Though the state government has issued notification for regularising unauthorised properties in the state, lack of complete clarity on parking deficit issue still worries CG Road shop owners.

More than 50 commercial buildings on CG Road have a parking deficit of more than 25% or 100 square metre, so the final decision will be taken by a committee to be formed for this purpose.

As per the notification issued by the state government, in case of less than 25% or 100 sq m parking deficit, unauthorised construction can be regularised by charging 1.5 times of jantri. However, if the deficit exceeds this figure, final decision will be taken by the committee.

The future of majority of the buildings that face sealing or demolition will be decided by the committee.

"We have not got the notification yet, so it is premature to comment on this. However, we will convene a meeting of the traders once we get a copy of the notification," said Jatin Parikh, secretary of CG Road Shop Owners' Association.The committee may ask the shop owners to create additional parking facility wherever possible. It may even recommend collecting heavy penalty to create parking facility for them, said sources close to development.

Market experts believe that minimum formality and speedy process are necessary to make impact fee bill effective.

"If there is lengthy paper work like the last time the impact fee bill was passed, people will be discouraged to get their unauthorised construction regularised," said Suresh Patel, vice-president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India, Gujarat.

He also said that the authority should regularise buildings with reasonable margin only. In case parking facility needs to be created, the authority should levy penalty of construction cost on traders and create facility on plots owned by it, he said.

President of Gujarat Institute of Housing and Estate Developers (GIHED) Rushabh Patel said, "Delay raises cost, so the process must be speedy."

Moreover, the law should be enforced in such a way that the issue of unauthorised construction does not come up in future, he said. He added that as the committee has to take a call on buildings with more than 25% parking deficit, the issue of CG Road will be resolved as there will not be any blame game.