Eliminate errors in 'those' TDRs

Urban development minister Eknath Shinde

Aurangabad, Jan 25:

The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has issued a large number of Transferable Development Rights (TDR) certificates in the last few years. It was alleged that some of the certificates were issued incorrectly. The state urban development department studied the relevant file and found 23 errors. Urban development minister Eknath Shinde on Tuesday instructed to regularize TDR by removing these errors through video conferencing.

Municipal corporations have to acquire private land for road widening. As corporations do not have the money to pay in cash. Therefore, the state government has adopted TDR policy since 1990. It was also implemented across the state. AMC started issuing TDR on a large scale from 2000. According to the development plan, land was acquired for DP road. In return, a TDR certificate was issued. It was alleged by the political parties that the officials and employees of the corporation gave wrong TDR. The then commissioner also took criminal action against the culprits. This was later termed as TDR scam.

The state government took notice and called for all the files and registers of TDR issued by the municipal corporation. For many years, documents have been lying with the urban development department for scrutiny. Some of the important files were returned to the municipal corporation. Meanwhile, Shinde on Tuesday instructed the AMC through VC to make efforts to regularize TDRs by removing the errors found in 23 files. The meeting was attended by municipal administrator Astik Kumar Pandey and joint director town planning AB Deshmukh.