Crores pending, Punjab govt tightens noose around EDC defaulters

Tribune News Service

Rajmeet Singh

Chandigarh, September 13

With crores of rupees pending as defaulting amount on account of external development charges (EDC) against private colonisers, the Local Government Department has tighten its noose around the defaulters.

It has been seen that in major cities like Mohali, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar, besides small towns like Zirakpur and Kharar and other civic bodies, builders are not depositing the EDC instalments, resulting in delay in approvals and timely completion of the projects.

A senior government functionary said it had been observed that properties mortgaged by the builder as bank guarantee were usually those which were in the last stage of development and not those which were being developed on priority.

After getting approval from the state government, the local government department has now directed the commissioners of municipal corporations and all Additional Deputy Commissioners (ADCs), Development, to reconcile the entire record within two months and initiate the recovery in 10 quarterly instalments.

The department has defined the civic bodies as potential zones for levying EDC, change of land use charges, urban development cess and permission fee in the municipal areas of Punjab. Accordingly, the charge has been levied.

Earlier, the department had also written to the civic bodies to recover the regularisation fee from the promoters of illegal colonies which had been regularised under the regularisation policy for the same.

Besides, a move to amend the policy on illegal colonies by regularising plots constructed till December 31, 2022, subject to the condition that the sale agreement had been executed before March 19, 2018, was still pending at the government level.

A senior government functionary said the proposed amendments also entail recovery of regularisation charges from individual plot holders in colonies where 25 per cent of plots had been sold, besides initiation of legal proceedings against defaulting colonisers and recovery of dues from them. Officially, there are around 14,000 illegal colonies in the state.

#Kharar #Mohali #Zirakpur