Office Order No.8/2016, Revenue Authority Certification for Planning Permission Applications

What the order does

Office Order No.8/2016 of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, Administration Division, changes the procedure for obtaining Revenue Authority certification when a planning permission application is submitted or processed. It modifies Office Order No.6/2016 and took immediate effect.

The change followed public representations about the practical difficulty of obtaining Revenue Department certificates at the time a fresh planning permission application was submitted.

Required Revenue Authority certification

Office Order No.8/2016 requires certification covering four points:

• The site is not a water body.
• The site is not poromboke land.
• The site is not covered under land ceiling proceedings.
• The site is not covered under land acquisition.

These checks concern the legal and revenue status of the site. Applicants and property professionals handling planning permission should therefore be prepared to obtain supporting certification from the Revenue Authority.

Procedure for fresh applications

For a fresh planning permission application, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority may admit the application after obtaining an undertaking from the applicant. The undertaking must confirm that the required Revenue Authority certification will be produced within one month.

The application may be processed, but demand advice will be sent only after the certification has been obtained. The order therefore allows initial admission without the certificates, while making them necessary before demand advice is issued.

Applications already approved

For a planning permission application approved by the Member Secretary where demand advice has already been sent, the application is not to be treated as pending merely because the Revenue Authority certificates have not yet been produced. A condition requiring those certificates before obtaining the Completion Certificate may instead be included in the final approval letter and plan.

Certain layouts, additions and revised plans

For proposals in Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority approved layouts, additional construction where an existing planning permission remains valid, and revision of plans, paragraph 4 states that the procedure followed for Environmental Impact Assessment will apply.

Office Order No.11/2016 dated 5 April 2016 made this correction. It replaced the words “Enforcement Action” in paragraph 4 of Office Order No.8/2016 with “Environmental Impact Assessment”.