Akrama-Sakrama 2.0? Karnataka Assembly passes Bill to regularise illegal buildings

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Assembly on Tuesday passed a Bill that will allow municipal commissioners to regularise unlawful buildings by levying a penalty, skirting close to the Akrama-Sakrama scheme that is pending adjudication in the Supreme Court.

The Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Bill also exempts small properties from requiring commencement certificates (CC) and occupancy certificates (OC), which the government said will help the poor and the middle-class.

Piloting the Bill, Urban Development Minister BS Suresha (Byrathi) said the amendments will apply to only such unlawful buildings that can be regularised as per the provisions of the building bylaws or any Act in force. This will not apply to buildings that have been ordered for demolition.

Under the Bill, municipal commissioners can issue OCs to citizens by levying a penalty on them if they had not obtained CCs at the time of starting construction. Similarly, a penalty can be levied “up to the extent or deviation in the construction with respect to sanctioned plan or zonal regulation limit as may be specified in the byelaws”.

Suresha told the Assembly that the threshold for building plan violations is being raised from 5 per cent to 15 per cent.

In January 2017, the Supreme Court stayed the Akrama-Sakrama scheme that sought to regularise unauthorised urban buildings for a fee.

“We cannot frame rules (for Akrama-Sakrama) as the matter is pending before the Supreme Court. But we can regularise small sites. We will specify the size in the rules, but it’ll be mostly 20x30 and 30x40 sites. We're exempting them from requiring CC and OC. This will help the poor and middle-class,” Suresha said.

Suresha, however, clarified that this is not the same Akrama-Sakrama scheme that is pending before the Supreme Court. "Unlicensed properties are not being exempted from the CC/OC requirement," he said.

The Bill also allows municipal corporations to rope in professional architects, engineers and town planners as ‘authorised persons’ to inspect buildings before, during and after construction, certify them and sanction building plans. “Empanelled engineers will be allowed to approve building plans up to 4,000 sq ft,” Suresha said.