House map approval in Uttarakhand

Online on the state's eASE App, to the development authority for your area: MDDA in Dehradun district, HRDA in Haridwar district, UDDA in Udham Singh Nagar, and the district-level development authority elsewhere. A Housing Department notification of 11 September 2025 made the eASE App services compulsory and stopped offline applications in all the authorities. MDDA, HRDA and UDDA also link AutoDCR, which checks the drawing file automatically, and publish lists of the architects, draftsmen and engineers they have empanelled.

Yes, for a single house in an approved layout inside a master plan area, on land meant for homes, up to 9 m high in the plains or 7.5 m in the hills and with no basement or stilt. A registered architect, licensed draftsman or engineer uploads the signed plan with your ownership papers and a structural safety certificate, AutoDCR checks it, you pay the fee on eASE App, and the professional issues the self-certified map with a digital signature within 7 days. You upload a plinth-level report within a year, and the professional issues the completion certificate. The route is optional, so you can still apply for a normal sanction.

The Town and Country Planning Department has drawn 815 standard house maps and put them on eASE App. An order of 12 September 2025 lets people who cannot pay a draftsman or architect, or live where none is available, file one of them. The authority still checks that the plot's land use allows a house, you are responsible for building to the map, the work must be supervised by an architect, draftsman or structural engineer, and you upload a structural-safety self-certificate signed by one of them.

In the hills a building must stay under 15 m, counting any stilt and sloping roof, and the road in front sets a lower cap: 6 m on a road under 4.5 m wide, 9 m up to 7.5 m and 12 m up to 9 m. In the plains the cap is 6 m on a road under 7.5 m, 9 m on one of 7.5 to 9 m and 12 m on one of 9 to 12 m. Some places are stricter: Mussoorie allows 11 m or ground plus three floors, whichever is less; Nainital's municipal area only two-storey houses up to 7.5 m to the ridge of a sloping roof; the Char Dham towns 6.5 m and two floors. Beside a highway or district road in the hills, the ridge may rise only 1.2 m above the road unless the house stands further back.

Inside a development area, yes, and an amendment to the 1973 Act in 2025 keeps the zila panchayat's building powers suspended there. MDDA covers all of Dehradun district outside the cantonment and HRDA all of Haridwar district; elsewhere the district authorities cover only their notified areas. Approvals in areas added after 2016 were suspended in March 2021 and made voluntary in June 2021, and in April 2023 the cabinet decided to make them compulsory within 50 m of highways in the hills and 100 m in the plains, but we found no notification of that rule. Outside every development area the bye-laws do not cover a single house, so ask the gram panchayat and the district authority before you build.

A licensed technical person, who signs every map with their name, address, qualification and licence number; you sign it too. With the application, you, the builder, the architect, licensed draftsman or engineer who drew the map and the structural engineer who designed the foundation and frame sign jointly and certify that the earthquake-safety codes are followed. For the low-risk self-certification route the architect must be empanelled with the authority, and each authority publishes its lists of empanelled architects, draftsmen, engineers and structural engineers.

An order of March 2023 gives the authority 15 days to issue a single-house map, and 30 days for other buildings. Ownership, technical and land-use checks run side by side, any objection must reach you within 3 days of filing and paying, and an NOC not received in time is treated as given. You get 15 days to answer an objection and 30 days to pay the fee, or the application lapses. A permit lasts five years and can be extended three times by a year each, and a completion certificate counts as granted if the authority neither grants nor refuses it within three months of your completion notice.

Under the Uttarakhand Urban and Country Planning and Development Act 1973, the authority's vice-chairman can stop the work, have the police remove the workers, seal the building and, after a show-cause notice, order it removed within 15 to 40 days, then demolish it and recover the cost as arrears of land revenue; you can appeal to the authority's chairman within 30 days. Since 2022 the fine is ₹5,000 the first time, ₹10,000 the second and ₹20,000 the third, plus up to ₹200 a day for ignoring a stop-work order, and the vice-chairman can compound these offences. Under self-certification you pay to fix any violation, and an architect who certifies wrongly can be reported to the Council of Architecture and blacklisted.