Building a house in Bengaluru? Know the new additional charge

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) recently issued a circular instructing joint commissioners and town planning officials of eight zones in the city to collect a new charge called lake rejuvenation fee. This means constructing a house in Bengaluru Metropolitan Region will get costlier.

To construct a house one has to pay the existing fee for building plan approval, water, and electricity connection and now, the additional lake rejuvenation fee.

According to a leading daily report, the lake fee most likely is to be ₹25 per square metre for the local planning areas falling in the Bengaluru Metropolitan Region. As per this rate, a constructing a building in 30x40 feet plot the lake fee would be ₹2,785 and ₹5,572 for 60x40 feet plot. 

Also, the lake fee for local planning areas having more than 10 lakh population, other than the metropolitan region, will be ₹20 per square metre, the daily reported.

The latest fee will be collected as per the Section 18 (1A) of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act (KTCP) of 1961. 

According to this section, the local planning authority is capable of collecting a charge for rejuvenation of water bodies. This section allows collecting of ₹1,00,000 per acre as a fee. However, the authority is yet to frame the related slabs and other rules, the Times of India quoted an official as saying.

In the month of January, the state government allowed collecting of fee for new constructions falling within the regions of Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA).

• Lake fee in Bangalore
• Lake rejuvenation fee
• Bangalore construction fee