Curation Team
AHMEDABAD: With yet another rule linked to granting building use (BU) permission, the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (Auda) has sent a message that it takes groundwater recharge goals quite seriously.
At a recent meeting, its board added a new condition to the Comprehensive General Development Control Regulations (CGDCR), putting the onus of maintaining percolation wells at their sites areas if developers want the BU permission.
Besides installing a percolation well, developers must now also submit a notarised affidavit categorically stating, “The percolation well and the rainwater harvesting system are operational, and we will maintain them so they remain functional permanently.” Auda will grant the BU permission only after this.
When Auda’s 2002 Development Plan was created, the General Development Control Regulations (GDCR) at that time, in a first, made a percolation well mandatory at constructions over 500 sq m. When the 2014 GDCR was drafted, this provision was clarified further. The provision continued in the 2017 regulations, which were renamed CGDCR.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) too collects a security deposit from builders to ensure that percolation wells at new buildings are maintained. The wells are inspected every five years. In 2023, AMC raised the construction fee, tree planting deposit, and building material removal charge for new constructions in the city. On Aug 8 that year, the civic body’s town planning department issued a circular announcing that the tree planting deposit, to be paid at the time of construction plan approval, has been raised by nearly three times.
The construction fee and building material removal charges too were increased by three to four times. AMC also decided to collect a Rs 75,000 deposit from developers towards maintenance of the percolation well at their building site.
This condition was over and above the rule that BU will be granted only if a percolation well is built at the site.
The deposit is to be refunded when the percolation well is inspected and the developer submits a certificate confirming that it is operational.
In 2002, for the first time, AMC made percolation wells mandatory for all constructions over 500 sq m in the city. In 2018, AMC issued notices to more than 1,200 buildings for not maintaining the wells.
Percolation wells in most societies, commercial complexes, and mixed-use buildings are failing their purpose, exacerbating the problem of waterlogging in monsoons.
