Gandhinagar, Feb 27 (PTI) The Gujarat Assembly on Monday passed a bill to amend an Act to regularise unauthorised constructions in urban areas by collecting "impact fee" from owners, which also empowered the government to extend the period for filing applications to regularise unauthorised constructions.

Although the Aam Aadmi Party, which has five MLAs in the 182-member House, supported the "Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Development (Amendment) Bill, 2023", it was passed by a majority vote of BJP legislators as the opposition Congress refused to extend support.

Also Read | Air India Business Class Passenger Complains of Insect Being Served in Flight Meal (Watch Video).

"The Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Development (Amendment) Bill, 2023, was brought to empower the government to extend the period, through a notification, for making an application to regularise unauthorised construction," as per the bill document.

Last December, immediately after the new BJP government was elected to power, the "Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Development Bill-2022" was passed unanimously with Congress and AAP extending support.

Also Read | Italian PM Giorgia Meloni To Visit India in March To Attend Raisina Dialogue.

The bill, which became an Act after Governor Acharya Devvrat gave assent, replaced an ordinance issued by the previous BJP government in October for the regularisation of unauthorised constructions in cities and towns.

The Act provides for the regularisation of unauthorised constructions within the jurisdictions of municipal corporations, urban development authorities and municipalities on payment of an "impact fee".

The provisions of the Act apply to any unauthorised construction done before October 1, 2022. Owners of such properties were supposed to apply for regularisation through online as well as offline mode, said Gujarat Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs minister Rushikesh Patel while tabling the amendment bill.

"In the ordinance, it was stated that people wanting to regularise their structures are required to apply within four months, starting October 17. As the four-month period expired on February 16, we cannot accept new applications," said Patel, adding that only 57,000 applications were received during the four-month window given in the ordinance, which later became law.

He said one of the reasons behind "very few" applications being received was the model code of conduct kicking in almost immediately after the promulgation of the ordinance in October for the Assembly polls, held two months later.

The minister said people had complained that the four-month period was too short for filing applications.

"Now, through this amendment bill, we are inserting a new clause in the Act which says that the state government can extend, by notification, the period for making an application for regularisation of unauthorised construction. This way, we will not be required to bring a new ordinance or amend the existing Act in the future for this purpose," said Patel.

Senior Congress MLA Arjun Modhwadia alleged the state government was forced to bring such Acts and amendments because it has failed to control the menace of illegal constructions.

He said this amendment will promote corrupt practices among officials and help only those who are involved in illegal construction.

Another senior Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar said the opposition party will support the bill only if the government declares a final cut-off date for accepting the applications and closes the window for any new applications made after that date.

AAP MLA Umesh Makwana suggested that the government exempt schools and other such "public service" structures from paying any fee for regularising their unauthorised structures.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)