THE Alor Star City Council and three municipal councils in Kedah will set up one-stop centres to give the necessary approval of plans to developers using the build-and-sell concept. 

Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said the centres would be set up by early next year. 

He said the three municipal councils are in Langkawi, Sungai Petani and Kulim. 

Mahdzir said the centres would, among others, handle applications for land conversion, sub-division, issuing of titles and approval for layout and building plans. 

“Approval time will be cut to four months from the previous 10 to 12 months,” he said after chairing the state executive council meeting yesterday. 

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak had announced on Monday that all state governments had agreed to set up the centres at 38 local council offices nationwide. 

Mahdzir also said that the state government had asked the state Land and Minerals Department to speed up the acquisition of land for the Ninth Malaysia Plan projects. 

He said the land was re-quired for development of new schools, police stations and also government quarters. 

Mahdzir said 100,000ha of land surrounding the Muda, Pedu, Ahning and Beris dams had been gazetted as water catchment areas. 

He said this would protect the land, earlier gazetted as forest reserve, from encroachment.