Ghaziabad: After development fees, the Ghaziabad Development Authority has also increased the cess for elevated road, metro and Ganga water in the new financial year. The new rates came into effect from Wednesday.“The metro cess, which was Rs 367/sqm, has been increased to Rs 435/sqm. The Hindon Elevated Road cess, which was Rs 692/sqm, has been increased to Rs 864/sqm,” said an official from GDA.GDA had been levying metro and elevated road cess since 2014. In 2021, the Allahabad High Court was hearing a case on the legitimacy of charging the cesses and the development authority had to put it on hold.In August that year, the court came up with the final order in which it directed GDA to stop taking separate metro and elevated road cesses from the developers.However in August 2023, the state govt, through a legislative order, effected a change in policy under which such cesses could be charged, and a gazette notification was issued in the same month.As per the notification, ‘in any development area, the State Govt declares its intention to undertake one or more special amenity projects, the Authority shall be entitled to levy special amenity fee in such manner and at such rate as State Govt may, by notification in the Gazette.’“Based on this, the metro, Hindon Elevated Road and Namo Bharat cess were incorporated into Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973, which was first cleared by the cabinet and then finally approved by notification from the governor. Since then, we have been taking cess under the said heads, which for the FY 2025-26 has been increased,” said the official.Apart from this, Ganga water cess has also been increased from Rs 241/sqm to Rs 289/sqm.Likewise, water fee, which was introduced from 2022, has also been increased to Rs 60.60/sqm of carpet area from Rs 50/sqm.The cess under all heads are required to be paid at the time of map sanctioning. For map approval of land measuring 200 sqm, it will cost between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000. For multi-storey buildings and group society of 2,000 sqm, it will cost between Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh.
