10,000 housing societies to get basic amenities in Surat

SURAT: Around 10,000 housing and industrial societies on reserved land belonging to Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and state government can now hope to get road, water, drainage, light and other facilities provided they had paid up 50 per cent of the incremental charges (IC) due to the local authorities. Societies built on reserved land were deprived of these facilities so far, but the new policy of the BJP-ruled municipal corporation is set to change all that, which would invariably benefit lakhs of people living in Varachha and Katargam areas of the city.

"This has been a long-standing demand of people on which many MLAs had made representations on a number of occasions. We have cancelled many proposals from 1999 to 2003 for seamless implementation of this new policy," standing committee chairman Rajesh Desai said here on Friday.

Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act stipulates that unless incremental charges have been fully paid by a society, it can't be provided with basic amenities. SMC has been taking an undertaking from a society on its paying 75 per cent of the money due towards incremental charges to start providing basic amenities to it.

"The new policy allows a society to avail of basic amenities even after paying 50 per cent of the amount due towards incremental charges after giving an undertaking to the SMC that it will pay up the remaining amount," a SMC officer said.

The policy would not only benefit 10,000 societies on reserved plots but another 15,000 which are coming up in the new town planning schemes of the city. This decision has been taken keeping in mind the 2017 assembly elections in the state.