Uttarakhand Cabinet Overhauls Building, Land Use, Urban Planning Rules

• Uttarakhand Cabinet approved new guidelines for transmission line Right of Way (RoW) compensation, increasing payouts for landowners, including double the circle rate for land under towers.
• The Cabinet approved the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Ordinance, 2025, to decriminalize minor offenses, replacing imprisonment with monetary penalties, with fines increasing 10% every three years.
• Additional FAR incentives for green building standards and rationalization of building bylaws were approved, impacting road width, setbacks, FAR, and hotel/resort construction norms.
• To promote tourism, agricultural land can now be used for resorts without land-use change, and access road width requirements for resorts have been reduced.
• New rules for urban planning and land pooling were approved, and faculty recruitment at Uttarakhand Technical University will now be conducted at the university level.

Why It Matters: Uttarakhand's new policies will reshape development, land use, and legal frameworks.