The Gazetteers Department

The Maharashtra State has an independent "Town Planning and Valuation Department" under the administrative control of the Urban Development and Public Health Department. This department came into existence in the year 1914, with the Consulting Surveyor to Government as its Head. The department principally deals with two important subjects viz., town planning and valuation of real property.

Town Planning.

The duties and functions of the department as stipulated by Government are as under:—

(1) Educating the municipalities regarding the advantages of town planning and preparation of development plans and town planning schemes under the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1954. (2) Advising the municipalities in the selection of suitable areas for preparation of town planning schemes. (3) Giving the required assistance to the municipalities in the preparation of development plans and town planning schemes in the shape of advice as well as loan of the services of technical assistants for the preparation of drafts of town planning schemes. (4) To perform the duties of the town planning officer when so appointed by Government, to scrutinise building permission cases, to tender advice to the Board of Appeal and to draw up the final schemes. (5) To issue certificate of tenure and title to the owners of lands included in town planning schemes. (6) To advise Government on all matters regarding town and country planning including legislation thereon. (7) To advise and prepare town development, improvement, extension and slum clearance schemes under the Municipal Acts. (8) To prepare development schemes or layouts of lands—(i) belonging to Government and (ii) belonging to co-operative housing societies and private bodies with the sanction of Government. (9) To advise Officers concerned in respect of village-planning and preparation of layouts for model villages, etc. (10) To advise Government on housing, slum clearance, regional planning and prevention of ribbon development including legislation. (11) To prepare type designs for the housing of the middle and poorer classes including Harijans. (12) To scrutinise miscellaneous building permission cases and layouts received from the Collectors and recommend suitable building regulations for adoption in the areas concerned.

Valuation.

The Consulting Surveyor to Government is the chief expert adviser of Government on this subject and his duties under this head include: (1) Valuation of agricultural and non-agricultural lands and properties in towns and villages belonging to Government and intended for the purpose of sale or lease. (2)Valuation of Government properties for the purpose of rating under the Municipal Acts. (3) Valuation for miscellaneous purposes such as cantonment leases, probate or stamp duty, etc. (4) Valuations for the purposes of fixing standard rates of non-agricultural assessment and prescribing values for zones in all villages and newly developing localities in the vicinity of important and growing towns. (5) Valuations for the purposes of fixing standard table of ground rents and land values in respect of lands in cantonments. (6) Scrutiny of awards of compensation (as received from Government). (7) Supplying trained technical assistants to do duty as the special land acquisition officers in important towns where land acquisition work is of a very important and responsible nature. (8) Giving expert evidence when called upon to do so in District Courts and the High Court when appeals are lodged against awards of compensation under the Land Acquisition Act. (9) Undertaking valuation work on behalf of railways and other departments of the Central Government and private bodies with the sanction of Government on payment of fees, etc. His other duties are:. (1) To advise the various Heads of Departments of Government in the selection of sites required for public purposes. (2) To see that all town planning schemes or layout schemes sanctioned by Government have been properly executed within a reasonable period or periods fixed in schemes. (3) To advise Government as regards interpretation, amendment or addition to the Bombay Town Planning Act, or rules thereunder.

The department was started in the year 1914, with the Consulting Surveyor to Government as its head who was later on assisted by one Assistant Consulting Surveyor to Government, one Deputy-Assistant Consulting Surveyor to Government and two senior assistants with the requisite staff. As the activities of this department increased, these assistants had to be posted at prominent places in the state to attend to the work of town and country planning very essentially required in and around the towns and cities. There has been a rapid expansion in the activities of this department in recent years with the consequential increase in the number of branch offices in the state. The head office of the department is at Poona and the other branch offices are at Bombay, Kolhapur, Kalyan, Nagpur, Amravati, and Aurangabad. Some of the officers have been appointed to function as land acquisition officers. There is thus a full time special land acquisition officer at Poona and one full-time Land Acquisition Officer at Bombay in addition to two part-time Land Acquisition Officers at Bombay and Poona.

The statutory powers regarding planning embodied in the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1915, have been replaced by the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1954. This Act generally incorporates the provisions of the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1915, and in addition makes obligatory on every local authority (barring village panchayats) to prepare the development plan for the entire area within its jurisdiction. The development plan would aim at the improvement of existing congested gaothan portion of the town and would make proposals in respect of outlying open areas so as to guide the development on planned basis. The proposals of development plans can be implemented by the preparation of statutory town planning schemes. In preparing town planning schemes, planner can ignore to a great extent existing plot boundaries. In designing his layout, existing holdings can be reconstituted and made subservient to the plan, and building plots of good shape and frontage can be allotted to owners of lands ill-shaped for building purposes and without access. The cost of a scheme can be recovered from the owner benefited, to the extent of 50 per cent, of the increase in the value of the land estimated to accrue by the carrying out of the works contemplated in the scheme. When a draft town planning scheme prepared by a local authority in consultation with the owners is sanctioned a Town Planning Officer is appointed. His duties are to hear each owner individually, consider his objections or proposals and make suitable adjustments or amendments in the draft scheme proposals, if found necessary.

Most of the local authorities have no technical staff of their own to prepare a development plan and it has been decided that this department should prepare the development plans on behalf of local authorities under the provisions of the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1954. Accordingly the scheme for preparation of development plans has been provided in the Second Five-Year Plan and additional staff has been sanctioned for this purpose. From the Satara district, the town of Satara has been selected so far for the preparation of a development plan under the provisions of the Bombay Town Planning Act, 1954. This department had prepared a master plan for Karad with the assistance of the additional staff sanctioned for then purpose in the year 1947 and the same has been submitted by the local authority to Government for sanction as development plan under the provisions of Bombay Town Planning Act, 1954. There is one town planning scheme at Karad viz., Town Planning Scheme, Karad No. 1, which is in a draft stage. The same is on hand with the Assistant Consulting Surveyor to Government, Bombay as Arbitrator. There is no branch office of the department in Satara district and the development plan of Satara is being prepared by the branch office at Kolhapur. The other work from this district is being dealt with generally by the Kolhapur branch office.

In connection with the Koyna Project, about 80 villages will be either partly or completely submerged under the proposed reservoir. A special officer designated as Rehabilitation Officer has been appointed by the Public Works department to work under the Chief Engineer, Koyna. The work of preparing the layouts for the new gaothans is being carried out by this office. However, besides the sites which are available in the district for rehabilitating the said villages a number of sites from the district of Sangli, Poona and Kolaba have been selected and the work of preparing suitable layouts is in progress. The work was initially spread over three years and still continues.

TOP