MAHUD Minister stresses on necessity of implementing building bye-laws
Source: The Sangai Express / DIPR

Imphal, September 15 2018: Municipal Administration, Housing and Urban Development (MAHUD) Minister Thounaojam Shyamkumar today stressed on the need for proper implementation of building bye-laws for the safety of human lives and proper town planning.

He was speaking at a one-day workshop on the theme 'Draft Manipur Municipality Building Bye-Laws, 2018 and Local Area Planning' jointly organised by the MAHUD and Town Planning Departments at the City Convention Centre, Palace Compound, Imphal.

Addressing the gathering MAHUD Minister Th Shyamkumar said the building bye-laws set standards for building work to ensure the health and safety of people in and around buildings by setting requirements for building design and construction.

The requirements and standards are based on current scientific and engineering knowledge, experience, techniques and modern methods of construction in the planning, designing and construction activities of buildings in the respective zone, he added.

He further said there is a.need to follow the regulations and guidelines of the building bye-laws of the State by every citizen to avoid untoward incident as Manipur lies in high seismic zone and to avoid natural and artificial calamities.

He added that such incidents can be avoided as building bye-laws are framed paying due regard to the weather conditions, local construction practices, availability of materials and other similar factors.

N Gitkumar, Director MAHUD Department and Chief Town Planner, Town Planning Department said that as per the advisory of the Government of India, all the 27 urban local bodies of Manipur have to switch on to online building planning approval system (OBPAS) by March 2019 and for that a firm has already been assigned for the development of the software.

He said before the introduction of the OBPAS there is a need for updating the existing building bye-laws of the State.

He said the one-day workshop was organised to welcome the suggestions and opinions of the public which could be incorporated in the existing building bye-laws with flexibility for any changes.

The Government of India has also issued an advisory that the building bye-laws need to be modified in tune with the Model Building Bye-Laws 2016 of the Ministry, he added.

MAHUD Director said that there will be many discussions before finalising the State building bye-laws.

He informed that 23 participants representing engineering institutes, architects forum (who have applied online) and executive officers of all 27 urban local bodies are participating in the workshop for the brainstorming session.

He also stated that a high level technical team will be soon formed to finalise on the technicalities to decide on the maximum height of the high rise buildings among others.

He also informed that all the discussions and presentations made in the workshop will be uploaded on the in official website of the Manipur Urban Development Agency (muda.mn.gov).

Five member delegates from Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) headed by R Srinivas, Head, Metropolitan and Union Territories Division, TCPO, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Sandeep Roy, Assistant Town and Country Planner (ATCP), D Blessy, ATCP, Harpal Dave, ATCP, Bhaskar S, ATCP thoroughly discussed on the pilot formulations of the Local Area Plans (LAP) and Town Planning Schemes (TPS).

They also gave suggestions to the Draft Manipur Municipality Corporation Building Bye-Laws, 2018 presented by the State officials.

The workshop focused on the modification of the State building bye-laws in line with the Model Building Bye-Laws 2016 prepared by the Ministry.

The discussion included topics like height of high rise buildings, rain water harvesting facility in the buildings, fire safety norms, smooth movement for differently-abled persons in Government buildings, sanitation facilities including segregated toilets for women among others.

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri on July 9, 2018 had launched the Local Area Plan (LAP) and Town Plan Schemes (TPS) for 25 smart cities in the country to fast track the resolution of area based infrastructure issues.

An amount of Rs 50 crore will be provided as Central assistance at the rate of Rs 2 crore per city for the identified 25 cities for preparing LAP and TPS.

The Central assistance will be released in three instalments; 20 percent with submission of preliminary proposal, 40 percent during submission of draft plan and remaining 40 percent during submission of final plan.

The 25 identified cities are Greater Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Vadodara, Indore, Ghennai, Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Warangal, Pune, Varanasi, Jaipur, Amritsar, Patna, Faridabad, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Raipur, Panaji, Shimla, New Kolkata, Srinagar, Dehradun, Aizawl, Gangtok and Imphal.

The workshop was also attended by M Joy Singh, Secretary, MAHUD Department, Uttam Singh, Joint Director MAHUD, officials of PDA, MAHUD and Town Planning.

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