Government exempts small residential houses under gram panchayat limits from occupancy certificates
BENGALURU
In a major relief to farmhouse owners and newly built property owners in rural Karnataka, the state government has relaxed the mandatory Occupancy Certificate (OC) requirement for certain categories of houses constructed under gram panchayat (GP) limits.
According to officials from the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) department, the exemption applies to newly constructed residential buildings built on 30×40 sq ft plots in rural areas falling within gram panchayat jurisdiction. The relaxation has come into effect immediately.
As per the RDPR notification, any residential building comprising ground floor plus two floors (G+2) or stilt plus three floors (Stilt+3), constructed on a 30×40 sq ft plot in rural areas, will be exempted from obtaining a mandatory OC. Significantly, the exemption applies even if the construction was carried out without prior approval or plan sanction from the concerned authorities.
Until now, owners of newly built houses in rural areas were required to undergo a detailed inspection process before an OC was issued. This involved site visits by gram panchayat officials along with jurisdictional town planning authorities, verification of certificates issued by recognised engineers and architects, and scrutiny of building plan approvals.
The government noted that these procedures were adding to the workload of staff at local bodies, many of which are already understaffed and overburdened. The existing process often resulted in delays in the disposal of files and slowed the delivery of various government services.
To ease administrative pressure and ensure faster service delivery, the government decided to relax the rules and exempt residential buildings constructed on 30×40 sq ft plots from the OC requirement, the order said.
The absence of an OC had become a major hurdle for property owners, as Electricity Supply Companies (ESCOMs) and local bodies were refusing to provide essential services such as electricity, water supply and drainage connections. This followed recent Supreme Court guidelines linking the provision of basic amenities to the availability of valid occupancy certificates.
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A few weeks ago, the government had issued a similar exemption for newly built properties within the jurisdiction of the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) and other local bodies, waiving the mandatory OC requirement.