In a bid to discourage sporadic development of farmhouses and encourage eco-friendly dwelling units in agriculture zones of the state, the Manohar Lal Khattar Government in Haryana has come out with a new policy for change of land (CLU) use with mandatory conditions that such premises would not be used for commercial purposes and have tree plantation on at least 15 percent of its land.

The policy notified by the Town and Country Planning Department, Haryana envisages the farmhouses as self sustainable units in the state. Under the policy for grant of CLU permission to set up eco-friendly farmhouse in Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture zones in Haryana, the eco-friendly farmhouse has been defined as a house constructed by the owner of a farm at his land for the purpose of main dwelling unit (residential) and ancillary use (farm/animal shed or ward/servant quarters).

It would be mandatory to install Rain Water Harvesting systems, ensure 100 percent treatment and reuse of waste water, 100 percent on site processing of all green/animal waste, tree plantation on at least 15 percent of farm land and installation of solar water heating systems in such premises.

The new CLU policy assumes significance in view of illegal farmhouses that have come up on agriculture zones in the state. The policy will be applicable in the agriculture zone of hyper, high, medium and low potential towns beyond 500 mtrs distance from the urbanizable zone of respective development plans.