Chapter I PRELIMINARY

(1)This Act may be called the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966.

1. (2) It shall extend to the whole of the State of Maharashtra.
2. (3) It shall come into force on such date1 as the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint but the State Government may if it thinks fit bring different provisions of this Act into force at different times.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-

1. (1) "agriculture" includes horticulture, poultry farming, the raising of crops, fruits, vegetables, flowers, grass or trees of any kind, breeding of livestock including cattle, horses, donkeys, mules, pigs, breeding of fish and keeping of bees, the use of land for grazing cattle and for any purpose which is ancillary to its cultivation or other agricultural purpose; but does not include the use of land as a garden which is an appendage to a building; and "agricultural" shall be construed accordingly ; 1[(2) "amenity" means roads, streets, open spaces, parks, recreational grounds, play grounds, sports complex, parade grounds, gardens, markets, parking lots, primary and secondary schools and colleges and polytechnics, clinics, dispensaries and hospitals, water supply, electricity supply, street lighting, sewerage, drainage, public works and includes other utilities, services and conveniences] ;
2. (3) "Appropriate Authority" means any public authority on whose behalf land is designated for a public purpose in any plan or scheme and which it is authorised to acquire ;
3. (4) "Arbitrator" means a person appointed as the Arbitrator for the purposes of any scheme or schemes under section 72 ;
4. (5) "Building operations" includes erection or re-erection of a building or any part thereof, roofing or re-roofing of any part of a building or of any open space, any material alteration or enlargement of a building, any such alteration of a building as is likely to affect an alteration of its drainage or sanitary arrangement or materially affect its security or the construction of a door opening on any streets or land not belonging to the owner ; 2[(5A) "compounded structure" means any development of land in respect of which the compounding charges, infrastructure charges and premium as levied by the Collector under the provisions of sub-section (2B) of section 18 or by the Planning Authority under section 52A, are paid by the owner or occupire of such structure and which upon such payment has been declared as compounded structure by the Collector or Planning Authority, as the case may be;]
5. (6) "Court" means in Greater Bombay, the Bombay City Civil Court; and elsewhere, the principal civil court of original jurisdiction; and includes any other civil court of a Judge of Senior Division or a Judicial Officer empowered by the State Government to perform the functions of the court under this Act within the pecuniary and local limits of its jurisdiction; 3[(6A) "Designated Officer" means the officer designated under sub-section (8) of section 53 ;]
6. (7) "development" with its grammatical variations means the carrying out of buldings, engineering, mining or other operations in or over or under, land or the making of any material change, in any building or land or in the use of any building or land 4[or any material or structural change in any heritage building or its precinct] 5[and includes 6[demolition of any existing building, structure or erection or part of such building, structure of erection; and] 7[reclamation,] redevelopment and lay-out and sub-division of any land; and "to develop" shall be construed accordingly];
7. (8) "Development Authority" means a New Town Development Authority 8[constituted or declared under section 113];
8. (9) "Development plan" means a plan for the development or re-development of the area within the jurisdiction of a Planning Authority 9[10[and includes revision of a development plan and] proposals of a special planning Authority for development of land within its jurisdictions]; 11[(9A) "development right" means right to carry out development or to develop the land or building or both and shall include the transferable development right in the form of right to utilise the Floor Space Index of land utilisable either on the remainder of the land partially reserved for a public purpose or elsewhere, as the final Development Control Regulations in this behalf provide;]
9. (10) "Director of Town Planning" means the officer appointed by the State Government as the Director of Town Planning;
10. (11) "engineering operations" includes the formation or laying out of a street or means of access to a road or laying out of means of water-supply, drainage, electricity, gas or other public service;
11. (12) "existing-land-use map" means a map indicating the use to which lands in any specified area are put at the time of preparing the map;
12. (13) "final plot" means a plot allotted in a final town planning scheme; 12[(13A) "Floor Space Index" means the quotient or the ratio of the combined gross floor area to the total area of the plot, viz :- Floor Space Index = Total covered area of all floors / Plot area; (13B) "Heritage building" means a building possessing architectural, aesthetic, historic or cultural values which is declared as heritage building by the Planning Authority in whose jurisdiction such building is situated; (13C) "Heritage precinct" means an area comprising heritage building or buildings and precincts thereof or related places;] 13[(13D) "Integrated Township Project" means an Integrated Township Project declared under section 18 or 44, as the case may be;]
13. (14) "land" includes benefits to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth;
14. (15) "local authority" means-
    • (a) the Bombay Municipal Corporation constituted under the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act (Bom. III of 1888) or the Nagpur Municipal Corporation constituted under the 14City of Nagpur Corporation Act, 1948,(C.P. and Berar II of 1950). or any Municipal corporation constituted under the 15Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949, (Bom. LIX of 1949). 16[(b) a Council and a Nagar Panchayat constituted under the Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and Industrial Townships Act, 1965 (Mah. XL of 1965),]
    • (c) (i) a Zilla Parishad constituted under the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961, (Mah. V of 1962). 17[(ii) the Authority constituted under the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act, 1976], (Mah. XXVIII of 1977).
      • (iii) the Nagpur Improvement Trust constituted under the Nagpur Improvement Trust Act, 1936,] (C.P. and Berar XXXVI of 1936). which is permitted by the State Government for any area under its jurisdiction to exercise the powers of a Planning Authority under this Act;
15. (16) "local newspaper" in relation to any area within the jurisdiction of a Regional Planning Board, Planning Authority or of a Development Authority, means any newspaper published or circulating within that area;
16. (17) "occupier" includes a tenant, an owner in occupation of, or otherwise using hisland, a rent-free tenant in any land, and any person in lawful possession of any land who is liable to pay to the owner compensation for the use and occupation of the land;
17. (18) "owner" includes any person for the time being receiving or entitled to receive, whether on his own account or as agent, trustee, guardian, manager or receiver for another person or for any religious or charitable purpose, the rents or profits of the property in connection with which it is used; 18[(19) "Planning Authority" means a local authority; and shall includes,-
    • (a) a Special Planning Authority constituted or appointed or deemed to have been appointed under section 40; and
    • (b) in respect of the slum rehabilitation area declared under section 3C of the Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971, (Mah. XXVIII of 1971) the Slum Rehabilitation Authority appointed under section 3A of the said Act;]
18. (20) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
19. (21) "plot" means a portion of land held in one ownership and numbered and shown as one plot in a town planning scheme;
20. (22) "reconstituted plot" means a plot which is altered in ownership or in any other way by the making of a town planning scheme;
21. (23) "Region" means any area established to be a Region under section 3;
22. (24) "Regional Board" or "Board" means a Regional Planning Board constituted under section 4;
23. (25) "Regional plan" means a Plan for the development or re development of a Region which is approved by the State Government and has come into operation under this Act;
24. (26) "Regional Planning Committee" means a committee appointed under section 10;
25. (27) "Regulation" means a regulation made under section 159 of this Act and includes 19[zoning, special development control regulations] and other regulations made as a part of a Regional Plan, Development plan, or town planning scheme;
26. (28) "Residence" includes the use for human habitation of any land or building, or part thereof including gardens, grounds, garages, stables and outhouses, if any, appertaining to such land or building;
27. (29) "Rule" means a rule made under this Act;
28. (30) "scheme" includes a plan relating to a town planning scheme; 20***
29. (31) "Town Planning Officer" means the officer appointed for the time being to be the Town Planning Officer for all or any of the provisions of this Act; 21[(31A) "Undeveloped area" means an area within the jurisdiction of one or more local authorities (not being an area within the jurisdiction of a cantonment board constituted under the Cantonment Act, 1924) (2 of 1924) which is in the opinion of the State Government in a neglected condition, or which is being developed or is in imminent likelihood of being developed in an uncontrolled or haphazard manner, and requires, in the public interest, to be developed in a proper and orderly manner ;]
30. (32) "Zilla Parishad" means a Zilla Parishad constituted under the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act, 1961 (Mah. V of 1962).