Curation Team
GANDHINAGAR: Gujarat is revisiting its approach to urban housing. As part of its Urban Development Year, the state govt is drafting a new township policy aimed at promoting organized, affordable housing across cities. The earlier 2009 policy failed to gain traction due to implementation gaps. The new version promises incentives like relaxed floor space index (FSI), tax breaks, and better alignment with urban development plans.
Sixteen years after it introduced the Residential Township Policy of 2009, the state plans to offer attractive incentives to real estate developers to build large-scale, self-sustained townships.
According to senior govt officials, the new policy is expected to address many of the gaps that hindered the success of the earlier one. “Very few projects took off under the 2009 policy, largely because developers struggled with local coordination on essential services like water, roads, and sanitation. The govt has received representations from various real estate development bodies for the need of a new township policy. The new policy will align townships with the future development plans of local bodies to avoid such bottlenecks,” said a source close to the development.
Official sources said that since developers of bear most of the cost for public infrastructure within a township, the govt aims to provide concessions in “land deduction” (land acquired by urban authorities for utilities like roads, public spaces, etc) in proposed townships. “The govt is also considering a proposal to offer relaxation in FSI and other concessions in municipal and other taxes, stamp duty and registration fees in the proposed township policy,” said sources.
“We are studying the various provisions and incentives offered to top township projects at the national and international level and the proposed policy will include these incentives. We will soon have wider public consultations to seek suggestions from various stakeholders,” said an official.
Sources added that the govt might also consider the option of offering land parcels to developers for such projects, as land availability for large township projects may become difficult.
