Haryana revises EDC norms to push stalled projects

Haryana’s department of town and country planning (DTCP) has decided to ease norms for payment of external development charges (EDC) and internal development charges (IDC) to push the development of stalled projects and recover outstanding dues, officials said on Thursday.

According to directions issued by AK Singh, additional chief secretary, DTCP, on December 23, in cases of migration and change of developer where the outstanding dues of original developer and its directors are more than ₹20 crore, the new entity or developer will be given two options for payment of EDC and IDC.

EDC is the fee levied by DTCP on real estate developers for the development of external infrastructure facilities outside the boundaries of a project. IDC is the internal development charges levied on the developer for development of infrastructure within a project.

The order issued said that a developer or new entity can pay the entire EDC, IDC to the department for such licence or colony before grant of final approval for migration, change of developer.

The order said that the new entity will also have the option to pay 25% of total outstanding EDC and IDC dues upfront and submit bank guarantee equivalent to 25% amount of the balance principal amount of EDC and IDC of such licence of colony. The balance EDC and IDC shall be recovered in eight half-yearly instalments alongwith applicable interest.

Another option for new entity or developer is that it can also opt for mortgage of 10% saleable area or built up area in lieu of bank guarantee against EDC after which the request for migration or change of developer shall be considered.

A senior DTCP official said that these changes have been made to facilitate the construction of stalled projects. “There are several project, which are stalled and there is pending EDC, IDC in crores. The department wants to give flexible terms to developers who take over stalled projects. Also in a number of running projects, the EDC payment is pending which has held up the approvals and if developers opt for this policy, then they can start getting approvals ,” he said.