Gandhinagar, Dec 4 : Buildings of up to 70 metres height or equivalent of 21 floors can now be constructed across Gujarat.

According to the regulatory norms released by the urban development department here, buildings of up to 70 metres can be constructed in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar and Junagadh.

The regulations for residential townships-2009 envisage that all private developers must purchase a minimum 40 hectares of land to build a residential township in the cities. In smaller towns, the mandatory purchase is 20 hectares.

The builder will be responsible for providing necessary infrastructure and community utilities. The onus of maintaining it also remains with the builder for a period of seven years. At the end of the mandatory period, the infrastructure will have to be transferred to the competent authority.

Before the building use permission for the township is issued, the builder will have to furnish a bank guarantee equivalent to two percent of the total cost of infrastructure of the township.

The regulations envisage that the township builder reserves five percent of the land for economically and socially weaker groups.

High rise buildings in Gujarat gained notoriety after a large number of them collapsed during the 2001 earthquake.