What a DTCP licence tells you, and how to look one up

Before land in a Haryana town can be turned into a colony of plots or flats, its owner needs a licence from the Director of Town and Country Planning.^[1] The licence is the planning permission underneath a project. It is public, and checking it takes a few minutes.

What a licence is

The law is the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975. Under section 3(1), an owner who wants to convert land into a colony applies to the Director for a licence, unless the land is exempted under section 9.^[1]

• A colony is land divided, or to be divided, into plots or flats for residential, commercial, industrial, cyber city or cyber park use, or for building flats as group housing.^[1]
• A colonizer is the individual, company or group that owns the land and has been granted a licence, and includes a developer.^[1]

What a licence binds the colonizer to

Section 3(3) lists the conditions. Among them, the colonizer must:^[1]

• give a bank guarantee of 25% of the estimated cost of the development works (37.5% for a cyber city or cyber park), or mortgage land instead;
• pay its share of the charges for external development works;
• maintain the roads, open spaces and parks for five years from the completion certificate, then transfer them to the government at no cost;
• build the community buildings within five years of the licence, or a longer period the Director allows. If it doesn't, the land for them can pass to the government.

How long it lasts

A licence is valid for five years and can be renewed, for up to five years at a time.^[1] Some kinds of colony have shorter limits, such as affordable group housing.^[2] A licence is granted in Form LC-V, renewal is applied for in Form LC-VI at least thirty days before it expires, and when the development works are done the Director may issue a completion certificate in Form LC-IX.^[2]

Find the licence

1. Get the licence numbers from the project's RERA registration. On HARERA Gurugram's registered projects list, open Details of Project (Form A-H); its Part B covers the project land and licence.^[6] Our HARERA guide shows where.
2. Open DTCP's licence register. It needs no login and no captcha.^[3]
3. Use the filters: status (All, Valid, Cancelled, Migrated or DeLicense), district, development plan, purpose, licence year and licence number. There is an Export to Excel button too.^[3] Leave the status on All, so a cancelled licence still shows.

Read the row

Each licence is one row. These columns matter most.^[3]

The Case No column links to a map view, and the Colony Name to layout, site or zoning plans.^[3] Under the Haryana Building Code, a building plan sanction is given in Form BR-III. The current code issues occupation certificates in Forms BRS-VII or BRS-V; the register keeps its older heading, BR-VII.^[5]

The licence index page also links to lists of rejected, returned, withdrawn and lapsed licence cases, and to bank guarantees for development charges.^[4]

Match it to the RERA registration

A promoter's RERA application must include an authenticated copy of its approvals and commencement certificate.^[7] In Haryana, a project is registered only if its licence and other permissions are valid at the time, and if the registration runs past the licence, the promoter must renew the licence or the registration may be cancelled.^[8] The authority must show the licence, the sanctioned building plans and other sanctions for each registered project on its website.^[8]

So check that:

• the licence numbers in the RERA registration are the ones in DTCP's register;
• the purpose and the sectors match the project you are being shown;
• the licence is valid, or renewed, for as long as the project's registration;
• a building plan sanction exists for the tower you are buying in;
• the developer named on the licence is the promoter, or you know how the two are connected.

What a licence doesn't tell you

A licence says the land may be developed as a colony, by whom and on what terms. It doesn't tell you who owns the land today: that is in the land records, which our project file reads separately. It doesn't say the building is finished, or that it will be.