PUNE: To make amendments on building by-laws and FSI, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has constituted an expert committee recently. This step has been taken after the meeting held by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with chief executive officers (CEO) and vice presidents (VP) of the 62 Cantonment Boards of India in New Delhi on April 30.
According to Priyanka Shrigiri, Vice President of Pune Cantonment Board (PCB), attention of government has been drawn from time and again on various issues related to cantonment renewal or extension of the expired or expiring lease building by-laws and FSI, transfer and mutation of old grant properties, freehold, service charges payable to cantonments and to address these issues the expert committee has been constituted.
She further said, “The committee will study the existing Cantonment Act to make specific recommendations for suitably amending the Act to impart modernisation and democratisation of the governance structure of Cantonment Boards. Along with it, the specific recommendation will be made for building by-laws. The existing FSI will be reviewed by the committee and make recommendations for future rationalisation. The committee will submit its report within four months to the MoD.”
Ashok Pawar, ward member of PCB, said, “The current FSI of the civil area is 1 and for bungalow 0.5. Now, the problem is that the sanction plans which are 70 to 80 years old are not getting the total FSI and the same problem is for the bungalow area. Also, if the residents of the bungalow area want to make changes in their building they cannot make it because the laws of FSI and building by-laws are not flexible. Hence, according to me, the MoD should think over it and increase the FSI. For the civil area, the FSI should be 2 and for bungalow area the FSI should be 1.”
“We have been constantly writing to MoD over and had several meetings with the concerned officers over the same topic and now they have paid attention over the issue. According to me, the educational institutes should be also taken into consideration, they should be called upon a meeting to discuss over this topic and their recommendations should be sent to the expert committee,” Pawar further said.
This step has been taken after the meeting held by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with CEOs and VPs of the 62 Cantonment Boards of India.
