Cuttack, June 5: A one-time exemption from the development authority has come as a relief to sub-plot holders, who had purchased plots but could not get their building plan approved because of common area rules.

The development authority has offered the exemption to sub-plot holders who were unable to get their applications cleared in the absence of layout plans of the main plot.

The common area rules for building plan approval, which the development authority enforced two years ago, had left thousands of sub-plot owners in the lurch. They had purchased plots, mostly in panchayat areas, before the development authority extended its jurisdiction.

The state government brought in the new layout rules in August 2015, making layout plans of plots mandatory for approval of building plan for its sub-plots.

As part of the new rules, a 30ft access road between two sub-plots was made mandatory. Thousands who had purchased plots before the development authority expanded its jurisdiction were affected by the lack of regulation and the buildings that had come up as a result.

"The government has lifted the restriction through a notification. We will now give a one-time benefit to those who had purchased and registered the sub-plots in their name prior to May 30, 2017," development authority secretary Kabindra Kumar Sahu told The Telegraph.

At least 5,000 sub-plot owners have not been able to get plan approvals. Around 1,500 of them had submitted applications for approval. "We will first take into consideration the applications of sub-plot owners who have already applied for approval," Sahu said.

According to the exemption scheme, sub-plot owners who had gone ahead and constructed houses without plan approval would be granted approval on the basis of payment of levy calculated following the area's benchmark value as fixed by the government.

"For plots between 500sqft and 5,000sqft, owners will have to pay levy at one per cent of the benchmark value of the land. In case of plots of more than 5,000sqft, levy will be imposed at 5 per cent of benchmark value," said the development authority's planning member Gouri Shankar Bhuyan. "No levy will be imposed on plots smaller than 500sqft."

For lands bigger than one acre that have been divided into sub-plots, 40 per cent will be earmarked for public purpose, 30 per cent will be used for access roads and the rest for other public purposes.