The Madras Town Planning Act of 1920 gave southern India statutory powers to prepare town-planning schemes for the orderly extension and replanning of towns. Like the Bombay Act of 1915 it relied on the preparation of layout schemes, plot reconstitution and betterment recovery to fund roads, drainage and open space. It enabled planned suburban extensions in Madras and other Presidency towns. The Act stood alongside the Bombay legislation as one of the foundational pieces of pre-independence Indian planning law.
It was a foundational statute extending statutory town planning and plot-reconstitution technique to South India.
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