Bhubaneswar, June 1: The Bhubaneswar Development Authority has decided to issue transferable development rights (TDR) in order to acquire land for development work, such as construction of roads, drains and renovation of drainage channels.

TDR is a certificate given to a person who loses a portion of his land to the development projects. The certificate is issued as per the market value of the particular land in the urban area. If the person develops a building in the remaining land, he will be allowed construct a house with more height in lieu of his TDR value.

TDR can be encashed if the owner sells the document to another person or a real-estate promoter developing a property in the city. While the TDR owner can get his value from the builder, by accepting the certificate a real-estate developer can get benefit in having more floor area ratio (FAR) or height of the building with respect to the road width available nearby.

BDA vice-chairman Krishan Kumar said: “During renovation of the drainage channels, we have noticed that work is not progressing as the channels are passing through private plots.”

“While on one hand the landowners are demanding residential or commercial rates in exchange of the land near the channels, it is impossible to provide them the rate as technically no one can get building plan approval to construct a structure over a channel,’’ he said.

To help the landowners and ensure quick development work, the BDA has now decided to issue TDR so that the landowners can use the certificates while developing their other portion of land at the same locality or at any other locality and if needed, sell it to a builder in exchange of money. An official in BDA’s planning wing added that land owners losing their land to other development activities such as laying of master plan roads within the comprehensive development plan (CDP) area around the city can also avail the benefits of TDR.

National council member of Indian Institute of Architect (IIA) Akshaya Kumar Beuria said: “The TDR is a good concept and it has started delivering results in states such as Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, but if it will be used for acquiring land for development activities then it may be more useful for persons with a bigger plot or more than one plots and builders. It may create problem for owners of single and small plots.’’

“If a person has ownership of more than one plots, then TDR issued against one plot can be used for the development of the other, but if he/she has only one plot then it may create problem for him to use it as depending on the real-estate market is risky,’’ said N.K. Patnaik, a city resident and land owner.

Land acquisition in several places has resulted in controversies as the original landowners are facing difficulties in getting their dues due to alleged wrongdoings of revenue officials.

“I hope that the TDR will give a new dimension to land availability for development. But if a person is having a single plot of land and it is completely lost due to development work, then there should be proper mechanism to compensate them with another land,’’ said real-estate developer Manoranjan Ray.