Town Planning schemes prepared under the 1951 act resulted in the piecemeal

planning having no relation with the adjoining areas. Thus, to have a planned
development of every square inch of the land within the municipal limits the need
for another enactment was unavoidable which leads to the enactment of Bombay town
planning act, 1954 replacing the 1915 act which came into force from 1st April
1957.the concept of development plan (DP) was introduced for the first time in 1954
act as the main planning instrument retaining the TPS for implementation of the DP.
The Bombay act of 1954 was applicable to the erstwhile Bombay state, then
comprising of Saurashtra & Kutch area, Gujarat area, Vidharbha & Marathwada area.
Since geographical area of Bombay state was too large and because of the
peculiarity of Saurashtra & Kutch region, it was felt that separate town planning
act on the basis of Bombay town planning act, 1954 is necessary. Thus a separate
town planning at for a whole of the state of Saurashtra was enacted viz. The
Saurashtra Town Planning Act, 1955(Saurashtra Act No. XII of 1955). The MRTP Act,
1966 promotes and regulates developments in the urban area and well as areas having
potential of being urbanized. It is a comprehensive planning act with development
functions. This Act comes under one of the five basic trendsetter models of town
and country planning in India and was adopted subsequently by other states like
Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil

OBJECTIVES:
The main objectives as mentioned in the preamble of the Maharashtra Regional and
Town Planning Act, 1966 are as follows:
a. To make provision for planning the development and use of land in "regions"
established for that purpose and for the constitution of Regional Planning Boards;
b. To make better provisions for the preparation of Development Plans with a view
to ensuring that Town Planning Schemes are made in a proper manner and their
execution is made effective;
c. To provide for the creation of New Towns by means of Development Authorities;
d. To make provisions for the compulsory acquisition of land required for public
purposes in respect of the plans;
e. And for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid

Salient Features of Act:

i. Provisions for Regional Planning, Development plan, Town planning Schemes.
ii. Implementation of schemes i.e. Land Acquisition, Transfer of Development Rights
and Plot Reconstitution Techniques.
iii. The Finance Aspect (Finance account and Audit )
iv. Governance for Plan Enforcement (Planning Authority ).

Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act 1966

The Planning Legislation operating in Maharashtra state is the Maharashtra regional
and town planning act 1966. Starting with preparation of town planning schemes for
small pockets of undeveloped areas under the Bombay town planning act 1915, the
next step was preparation of Development plans for the entire town areas, as an
obligatory duty of local authorities under the Bombay town planning act 1954, and
then followed inclusion of regional planning for some selected areas around some
big cities under the 1966 act. All details for making T.P. Scheme introduced first
under the Bombay town planning act 1915 are simply repeated as part of the latest
legislation that followed.
The M.R. and T. P. Act includes details such as agency for planning, matters to be
included in the various plan, procedure laid down from starting of work to the time
plans are finalized, as well as controls over development.
Major Divisions: the M.R. and T.P. Act is divided into four major categories of
planning work at present undertaken in Maharashtra state. These four categories
are:
1.Preparation of Regional Plan for selected areas.
2.Preparation for development plans for towns, as an obligatory duty by every
planning Authority.
3.Preparation of town planning Schemes for selected urban areas.
4.Preparation of plans for New Towns, as proposed under Regional Plans in first.
5.Regional plans are to be prepared for Regional areas, as fixed by Government and
as notified in the gazette. There is hardly technical guidance in fixing the limits
of regions; So far some big cities in the state have been selected along with their
surrounding areas as arbitrary boundaries, for preparing regional plan.
6.The obligatory duty for the preparation of development plans each local authority
for the area lying within its jurisdiction was placed on each such authority big or
small from Municipal Corporation to Smallest Village Panchayats under the Bombay
town planning act 1954. These provision are repeated in the M.R. and T.P. Act 1966.

7.Originally Schemes could be prepared for only open areas under process of
development. The work of formulation of T. P. Schemes for small portions of urban
areas is being done ever since 1915 when the first town planning act became
operative. There are three agencies for preparing town planning schemes:
8.Local Authority preparing a draft T.P. Scheme
9.Arbitrator appointed by the Government for preparing Final Town Planning Scheme.
10.Tribunal of Appeal to decide some valuation matters. There are different
procedures laid down in the Act in all these three stages.
According to the provisions of the MR&TP Act 1966, TPS can be prepared by the
planning authority for the purpose of implementing the proposals of a final
Development Plan. The cost of the TPS is to be financed by recouping 50% of the
"betterment" which is defined as the difference between the value of Final Plot
after TPS implementation and value of Original Plot before TPS implementation.
Despite being conceptually attractive, TPS has proved to be procedurally very
cumbersome
The Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 has been exclusively concerned
with the orderly development and use of land and compulsory acquisition of land in
conjunction with the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The Act till the recent amendment
was immune to other land policy objectives like resource mobilization for
infrastructure investment or imposing conditions of development for more equitable
development of land. Average time taken for completion of a TPS in Maharashtra has
been 15 years.
Under Section 125 of this Act it has been clarified that "any land required,
reserved or designated in a Regional Plan, Development Plan or town planning scheme
for a public purpose or purposes including plans for any area of comprehensive
development or for any new town shall be deemed to be land needed for a public
purpose within the meaning of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894". Under the Act, after
the publication of a draft Regional Plan, a Development or any other plan or town
planning scheme, acquisition of land can proceed under the provisions of the Land
Acquisition Act 1894. On receipt of application from the Appropriate Planning
Authority, the State Government has to make a declaration in the Official Gazette,
in the manner provided under Section 6 of the LA Act, 1894. However, such
declaration should not be made after the expiry of three years from the date of
publication of the draft plan. Compensation is determined on the basis of the
market value prevailing on the dates as described below;
a.Where the land is to be acquired for the purposes of a new town, the date of
publication of the notification constituting or declaring the Development Authority
for such town.
b.Where the land is acquired for the purposes of a Special Planning Authority, the
date of the publication of the notification of the area as an undeveloped area: and
in any other case, the date of publication of interim or the draft plan or town
planning scheme. If a declaration is not made within three years of publication the
draft plan, then fresh declaration has to made and that date is to be used for
determining the market value and compensation.
Section 127, allows the owner to serve a purchase notice to the Appropriate
Planning Authority, if land is not acquired within ten years from the date of the
final Plan. If lands are not acquired within six months from the date of the
service of such notice, the reservation, allotment or designation is deemed to have
lapsed and the land is deemed to be released from such reservation, allotment or
designation. The land then becomes available to the land owner for the purposes of
development permissible in the case of the adjacent land under the relevant plan.
Under Section 128, lands can be acquired for purpose other than the one for which
it is designated in any plan under the provisions of the LA Act 1894 under certain
conditions.

Current Situation & Emerging Issues:

Inspite of the fact that this town planning Act of 1966 has done a good job and lot
of planning activities are being observed in the state yet few shortcomings, as
observed, needs a full consideration of the concerned authorities so that a time
bound plan or a scheme can be prepared and implemented in the State to cater to the
needs of the ever increasing urban society.
i. There is no definite time limit prescribed for the preparation of development
plan by the planning authority and its approval by the State Government.
ii. Reservations on the private lands for various public purposes or for the local
bodies or for the Union/States serve no useful purpose. By and large these
reservation remains on the paper itself. This can be overcome by designing a
suitable mechanism for generation of finances or redesigning through town planning
schemes. The agency for which the reservation has been kept may be asked to pay
some percentage of the market value of land to the planning authority at the time
of preparation of the plan itself and if they don't acquire the land once the
development plan comes into force the amount may be forfeited. This will create a
sense of seriousness on the part of the concerned agency. Otherwise the principle
of balanced development and proper planning of the areas will fail.
iii. Development plans prepared are too idealistic and bear no relation to the
implementing capacity of the planning authority. The act must have clear cut
provision for the source of finance and how the plan is to be implemented within
the time frame so as to achieve the objective of the plan in its true sense.
iv. The act casts an obligation on the planning authority to prepare a development
plan but it cast no similar obligation to implement it. If a draft development plan
is not prepared within the time limit prescribe by the Government, it intervenes
and appoints an officer to prepare the plan on behalf of the authority, but the act
is silent if there is a failure by the planning authority, in implementing the
approved plan properly and within the given time frame. Therefore, the act must
provide unambiguously obligatory duty of plan implementation as the plan
preparation is. There is provision in the act (section 96) for the submission of
annual reports to the state Government by the planning authority but the authority
is not submitting it or not acting in accordance with it, the Act does not say as
to be added in the present Act.
v. Even in the case of town planning scheme also the town planning officer is
taking long time in its preparation since there is no time limit prescribed under
this Act, for the extension of periods by the state Government, for preparation of
preliminary and final scheme.
Therefore, some time frame is a must for preparation of a town planning scheme.
This will obviously reduce the court cases and financial burden on the planning
authority.
Rapid Urbanization is the current status of the development in Maharashtra. The
population density as per 2011 census is 365 ppknY. Nearly 42% urbanisation is
accounted as per population figures. The rural figures have gone up since 2001
census as the State policy was diverted, but still the overall statistics suggests
the need for a more progressive and rapid development in Maharashtra. This pressure
on implementation can be abridged by the TP Schemes.
A committee headed by Shri. Landge, deputy director town planning Sunil Sukhlikar,
former director town planning A R Patharkar, former deputy director of town
planning Y S Kulkarni, former joint director B V Kolhatkar and architects Anand
Patwardhan and Rajiv Raje; was formed for this purpose of amending the shortcomings
of MRTP Act, 1966.
There is provision of TP scheme in the Act. The scheme allows an alternate
mechanism to pool in land for urban development activities at a faster pace,
without taking recourse to compulsory acquisition of land and benefits the land
owners financially. The scheme is conceptualised as a joint venture between the
local authority and the land owners, who voluntary agree to pool in their land,
redistribute the reconstituted plots among themselves and share the development
cost.
After the development, the price of the same plots goes up and the owners get more
benefits despite the area of their plots being reduced. Feeling the urgency to put
the scheme to effective use, the state government had a year ago issued an
ordinance to amend the TP scheme and send it to the Centre for its consent.

Town Planning Schemes

As per the provisions of MRTP Act, a Planning Authority may for the purpose of
implementing the proposals in the Final Development Plan, prepare one or more town
planning schemes for the area within its jurisdiction.
Declaration of intent: The Planning Authority shall declare the intent of making a
Town Planning Scheme and its publishing it in official gazette. The Planning
Authority in consultation with the Director of Country Planning shall make the
draft scheme and publish the notification in an official gazette within twelve
months of the declaration of intent.
Contents of draft scheme: a. Ownership, area and tenure of original land holdings.
b. Details of reservation, acquisition or allotment of land. c. Extent and
boundaries where plot reconstitution is required. d. Total cost estimations. c.
Allotment of final plots to owner and transfer of ownership.
Objections and suggestion of affected persons to draft scheme to be considered
before getting it approved from state government.
Power of state government to sanction draft scheme: Within six month of notifying
in the official gazette about preparation of draft scheme, the planning authority
shall submit it to state government after incorporating the objection and
suggestion and modification, if any.
Honouring the statutory plans: There is a restriction on use and development of
land after the declaration of Town Planning Scheme. Within the area included in the
scheme no person shall change land use, or carry out any development with necessary
permissions from the planning authority.
The state government sanctions the final scheme and as it may think fit may
withdraw a scheme and once the final scheme comes to force, the Planning Authority
has the powers of eviction from a said property, demolition, alteration work etc.
and execution of any work deemed important under the scheme. For any variations on
ground sure to errors, irregularities or informalities etc. Planning Authority may
implement the changes after getting permission from the state government in
writing.

Inferences
The MRTP Act of 1966 has tried to fulfil its objectives to a great extent, but
looking to the fact that most of the Maharashtra's economic growth coupled with
urban development are yet to come in the near future, a more comprehensive law on
town planning and urban development is required to be enacted, to be conceived in a
regional perspective. Reasonable time limit for preparing the different stages of
the plans/schemes by the planning authority as well as its approval by the State
Government must be provided for in the town planning Act. Also care should be taken
to have provisions which are workable in the actual practice. The planning
legislation should be such as to be able to succeed in the court of law and attain
its objectives.
Undoubtedly, any planning legislation has to be dynamic and for well-being of the
people. However, it may have different provisions with respect to the local needs.
Besides, it must also be able to adapt the advancement in the technology and modern
tools available to the planners. Geographical Information System (GIS) is a fast
emerging area in the field of information technology which has influenced the
planning process. The maps/plans generated from the GIS provide improved clarity,
easier to understand, does not allow for manipulation and are better product than
conventional maps, complete transparency which is the keyword today can be attained
while during the preparation of plans and schemes. Due to absence of strong legal
backing, Government is unable to exploit this technology. Therefore, the planners
and legal experts are required to work out a mechanism to incorporate corresponding
provisions in the planning legislation considering its tremendous utility in the
field of planning practices. Thus this congress is timely and appropriate platform
to discuss this aspect at length and suggest suitable recommendations in the
planning legislation.