Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Cabinet has decided to exempt houses built on less than five cents of land or with an area of less than 300 square metres from the building rule that made rainwater harvesting mandatory for all houses.

The Cabinet approved this and other amendments to the revised building rules that were notified on November 8, 2019.

The method of calculating the floor area ratio (ratio of the area of the land to the total usable area of the building) based on the built-up area has been done away with. Even though the floor area ratio existed before, for flat builders and others, it was calculated by excluding the parking area, electrical room and veranda (passage).

Industry bodies had complained that some of the benefits enjoyed by the construction sector would be lost through the 2019 amendments, which were introduced based on two rounds of discussions that the government held.

It was decided to go by the average setback when calculating the minimum space (setback) that has to be kept open on all four sides when constructing buildings. The provision that was there previously was scrapped in 2019. But it was reinstated after it was noticed that removing the average setback was causing problems to people as plots in Kerala are generally irregular in shape.

The new rules, with the amendments made by the government, will be notified in two days. The notification will state from when the rules will be effective.

Concession on road width for larger buildings

The mandatory road width for hospitals, educational institutions, office and auditorium buildings with an area of more than 18,000 square metres has been reduced to eight metres from the current 10 metres. The change was made necessary by the fact that roads with a width of more than eight metres are less in Kerala.

It has been decided to determine the width of the road in front while constructing industrial buildings in two ways. According to the amendments, the width should be five metres for buildings with an area up to 6,000 square metres and six metres for those with an area of over 6,000 square metres.

As per existing rules, the road width needed for industrial buildings with an area of more than 4,000 square metres is 10 metres.

The government has also decided to promote licensees with three years of work experience (Senior Supervisor) to the post of engineer-B.

Permit exemption for poultry, cattle sectors

Buildings constructed for rearing 1,000 chickens, 20 cows and 50 goats no longer need a permit. This was the main demand of farmers in these sectors.

Manorama had reported that the strict prevailing conditions were forcing farms to close and that this was becoming detrimental to farmers. Until now, farms with more than five cattle, 20 goats, five pigs and 100 chickens required a permit from the local government department.