Ahmedabad's impact fee law: what GRUDA 2022 can regularise, what it costs, and what it never covers

Rules and rates as of 25 October 2026.

Walk through almost any older Ahmedabad society and you will see it: a balcony turned into a room, an extra floor on a bungalow, a ground-floor flat that now runs a clinic, cars parked on the road because the stilt was enclosed. In Gujarat this kind of building work is usually called "impact fee" construction, after the fee that has twice been offered to make it legal. The current law is the Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Development Act, 2022, often shortened to GRUDA. This explainer covers what it lets an owner regularise, what it never will, what it costs, and why a buyer should care.

What the Act is, and its key dates

The Act is Gujarat Act No. 1 of 2023, assented to on 2 January 2023 and published in the Gazette on 3 January 2023. It replaced an ordinance and is deemed to have come into force on 17 October 2022 (section 1(3)). It defines unauthorised development broadly: work done without permission to use the building, or against the planning law or the permission granted, "irrespective of ownership" (section 2(1)(j)).

Three dates matter:

• Cut-off for the construction. Anything built on or after 1 October 2022 cannot be regularised under the Act at all (section 8(4)).
• Old demolition notices. A removal or demolition notice issued on or before 30 September 2022 is deemed suspended while the matter is dealt with under the Act (section 5(1)). Notices under RERA are not covered.
• Application window. The owner or occupier had to apply within four months of commencement (section 5(2)). A 2023 amendment (Gujarat Bill No. 2 of 2023, passed on 27 February 2023) added section 5(2A), which lets the State extend this window by notification. The latest extension we could read is an Urban Development and Urban Housing Department notification dated 16 December 2024, which extends the period by "six months on and from 17th December, 2024". On that wording the window ran to about mid-June 2025. We could not find or read any later extension, so check with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) or AUDA whether applications are being accepted today.

Who decides, and how long it takes

In Ahmedabad city the "Designated Authority" is the Municipal Commissioner; in areas under AUDA it is the development authority's chief executive. Joint owners or occupiers must normally apply together. The authority has six months to scrutinise an application, then orders the fee. You have two months to pay. If you do not, the old notice revives, or the application is refused and the work becomes liable to removal (section 6).

A paid-up order is treated as a building use permission for the building (section 9), and court cases filed by the authority over that work abate (section 11(1)). Two limits: the order "shall not" be taken to decide who owns the construction (section 11(2)), and it does not wipe out any other civil or criminal liability (section 15).

A refused applicant can appeal to an Appellate Officer within 60 days, with a ₹200 fee and a deposit of half the fees payable (section 12).

What can be regularised, and what never can

Section 10 lists what the authority may regularise: margins, built-up area, height, change of use, common plot (up to half its area), covered projections, parking and sanitary facilities. On parking, at least 50% of the requirement under the Comprehensive General Development Control Regulations (CGDCR) must actually be provided, on site or within 500 metres; only the other half can be paid off.

Section 8 is the list that matters more for a buyer. Nothing is regularised if it stands on:

• government, local-body or statutory-body land, or land acquired or allotted for a specific purpose;
• a road alignment, land reserved under a development plan or town planning scheme, or a water course or water body;
• a school playground, or an area earmarked for hazardous industry.

It is also barred where the zone's permissible FSI is below 1.0, where non-residential use exceeds half the maximum permissible FSI, where anything projects beyond the plot boundary, or where a change of use creates a health or safety hazard. Work that breaches fire safety, RERA or structural rules is refused unless the owner produces a fire safety certificate and a structural engineer's certificate.

What it costs

The fees are not in the Act. They sit in a separate notification (GH/V/155 of 2022, dated 17 October 2022) published with the 2022 Rules. For residential use, the charge depends on the total unauthorised built-up area across all floors. Change of use and non-residential use pay twice the rate. A sanitation shortfall adds a lump sum of ₹7,500. Deficit parking is charged at 15% of the jantri rate for residential use and 30% for non-residential.

Read as written, bands one to four are lump sums, and only the top band adds a charge per square metre. The table applies that reading to some typical areas.

Unauthorised built-up area	Notified wording	Residential fee	Non-residential or change of use (2x)
40 sq m	₹3,000 (up to 50 sq m)	₹3,000	₹6,000
80 sq m	₹3,000 plus additional ₹3,000	₹6,000	₹12,000
150 sq m	₹6,000 plus additional ₹6,000	₹12,000	₹24,000
250 sq m	₹12,000 plus additional ₹6,000	₹18,000	₹36,000
400 sq m	₹18,000 plus ₹150 per sq m above 300	₹33,000	₹66,000

The fee form carries a "Rs./Sq.Mt." heading, so ask the AMC to confirm the lump-sum reading for your case before you rely on it.

A worked example

Take a row house inside AMC limits. The owner enclosed the stilt parking and added a room on the terrace before October 2022. The total unauthorised built-up area is 140 sq m, all residential, and the parking shortfall is 15 sq m. Assume a jantri rate of ₹20,000 per sq m. This figure is purely illustrative; the Rules define jantri as the rate "prevailing on the date of this notification", which we read as the rate in force on 17 October 2022.

• Built-up fee (100 to 200 sq m band): ₹6,000 + ₹6,000 = ₹12,000
• Parking deficit: 15% × ₹20,000 × 15 sq m = ₹45,000
• Total: ₹12,000 + ₹45,000 = ₹57,000

If the ground floor were used as a shop, the built-up fee for that change of use would double to ₹24,000. Two points stand out. The parking charge, not the built-up fee, is the large number. And the fee is small next to the cost of losing the room to a demolition order.

Why this matters when you buy

A resale property with pre-2022 additions falls into one of three groups. It may hold a GRUDA order with the fee paid, the documents for which a seller can show you. It may have an application still pending. Or it may never have applied. In July 2025 the Gujarat High Court, in Mohmadtahir Kamaluddin Ansari v. State of Gujarat, directed that an AMC removal order not be enforced until a pending GRUDA application was decided. The court did not go into the merits, so a pending file is a live risk, not a cure.

Anything built after 30 September 2022, or standing on reserved land or a road line, has no route under this Act. A regularisation order also does not prove title. You still need a clean chain of sale deeds.

This is general information. For a specific property, a local advocate can read the order, the plans and the title together.