Schools allowed to hike floor area ratio

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FAR is the ratio of the total area of the building’s floor to the area of land it is built on. In Chandigarh, the FAR for private school is .50. However, there are around 20 schools which were allotted land with .25 FAR.

Increasing the FAR would entail increasing the building’s area on the land it is located. The administration allowed couple of schools to enhance FAR to .50 after taking charges, but later withdrew the scheme.

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Challenging the move, affected schools moved the Punjab and Haryana high court and the administration was forced to enhance FAR of all the schools, which have to pay prescribe charges to avail the benefit.

Confirming the development, UT deputy commissioner Ajit Balaji Joshi said that permission for enhancing FAR from .25 to .50 has been accorded and that they have started receiving applications from the schools.

Welcoming the decision, Independent Schools’ Association (ISA) HS Mamik said that the administration has done the right thing by resolving the long pending issue of the schools.

The administration has also decided to allow use of basement in private schools for office.

‘Make FAR on par with Mohali, Panchkula’

The FAR for private schools in Mohali and Panchkula is 1, which is the maximum that a school can achieve. The present FAR of .50 for Chandigarh was fixed in the 1950s, while the ground coverage is 15% of the total size of the plot. The association has been demanding that the FAR be increased to 1, thus making it at par with Mohali and Panchkula.

There are over 100 private schools in different parts of the city. H S Mamik said that the private schools need more space for accommodating more students and providing better facilities to them.

“The administration should increase FAR of private schools. The present FAR was fixed in 1950’s and the education system has changed a lot since,” said Mamik.

Vinod Joshi, city-based architect, said that even enhancement of .25 will provide big relief to the schools as it would enable them to create more facilities such as hostels.

The board of inquiry constituted by the Chandigarh administration for hearing the objections/suggestion of the public before finalising the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031 had recommended not to enhance exiting FAR of the city’s private schools. However, the board was of view that additional land can be allotted to educational institutes to meet their requirements.