March 29: The Assam Real Estate Infrastructure Developers Association (AREIDA) has postponed its decision to move court after the state government announced the formation of a comm- ittee to study the building bylaws 2006 of the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority.

In a meeting held recently, the association had decided to move court against the state government’s decision to stop construction in the city saying the bylaws were being amended based on a report and recommendations by the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), Ahmedabad.

“As the state government has formed a committee, we are considering it as one step forward towards changing the present scenario. We will go for reappraisal of the entire thing,” P.K. Sharma, president of the association, told The Telegraph.

The state government recently formed a 13-member committee to study the building bylaws. The members are: principal secretary to the state government, senior officials of the GMDA and Guwahati Municipal Corporation and four public representatives — former vice-chancellor of Gauhati University Nirmal Kumar Choudhury, consultant engineer J.N. Khataniar, president of Architect Association of Assam Pradyut Morol, and professor of Assam Engineering College Jayanta Pathak.

The association requested the new committee to be aware of the ground realities and examine the burning issues, which were intima- ted to the government recently.

The association in September last year approached the GDD minister and said the technical side of the existing building bylaws was “strong, adequate and well prepared”. They told the minister that CEPT was only an educational institute and not a statutory body and was far from being in the same standing as the statutory organisations and expert committees that framed the current bylaws.

The association told the minister that CEPT might not have the technical and practical competence to supersede the recommendations of the committee, which framed the present bylaws and that “such a move could spell doom for this city”.

The current building bylaws were finalised after an elaborate process which started in 2002 with the constitution of a high-level committee under the chairmanship of N.K. Chaudhry, a civil engineer, ex-director of technical education Assam, and former vice-chancellor of Gauhati University.

While the association said the technical part of the current bylaws was “clearly above question”, it pointed out some loopholes in its procedural part.