The Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) has been all but sidelined by the state government when it comes to the latter’s 2021 building by-laws, KHADC executive member in charge of building by-laws, Paul Lyngdoh, said today and it has decided to reject the rules framed by the government.
The state government’s by-laws were notified by the Urban Affairs Department and the KHADC, as an authority, only features in the definition part of the notification.
“Apart from this, in other pages there is no mention of the district council or its jurisdiction even though in the meeting we had decided that we can use the same by-laws, which will be uniform for the whole state. We had also agreed upon having separate by-laws as per the suitability of the villages or towns. But nothing has been done,” Lyngdoh griped, adding that what was notified was not what was agreed between the state government and council.
The KHADC’s eye was also drawn to a proviso in the government’s rules where it states that any land that permission for building work will be required from the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority (MUDA) on any land above 50,000 square feet, whether the land is under the jurisdiction of the councils or not.
This has irked the KHADC, with Lyngdoh, who used to be Urban Affairs Minister until 2013, saying, “The autonomous district council area will be turned into an area under MUDA by just this one proviso.”
Another section the KHADC is not too happy about centres on the rule that approval of building plans needs to be endorsed by an engineer and architect who holds a PhD and who has 10 years of experience.
“People with such qualifications we will not find in Meghalaya. We expect this for the thousands of building permissions? This is all impractical and, therefore, the executive committee (of the KHADC) has decided to reject, in toto, the Meghalaya Building By-Laws 2021,” Lyngdoh added.
