AHMEDABAD: A 100-year-old listed heritage building at Moto Suthar Vado in Khadia was demolished by its owner on Thursday. Deputy estate and town development officer, central zone, Rajendra Jadav, said, "The owner of the heritage building demolished the structure without any prior permission from the AMC authorities. We have served him a notice and asked not to pull down the structure till he has a proper clearance from AMC. The building is in the Grade II of heritage list of buildings under AMC."

However, owner of the building, Ashish Pasiwala, said he had bought the building for Rs 7 lakh a year ago. Pasiwala added, "The building was not demolished. It collapsed as it was more than 100 years old. I do not have any idea that the building comes under the heritage list."

Of late, many such structures have been falling prey to rapid commercialization. Ironically, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in a recent event joined hands with industries to restore and conserve structures under Ahmedabad Heritage Foundation (AHF). But, the move seems to be an eyewash.

Appointment of a Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC) is also in a limbo. HCC was to be set up in September 2007 under the Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act. The panel was to preserve listed heritage buildings, precincts and natural features.

However, due to shrinking space and high premium value of these structures in the city, many architectural wonders are being illegally encroached upon or languishing in neglect.

In August 2009, 11 heritage structures collapsed in Sarangpur, Jamalpur, Dariapur, Kalupur, Khadia and Raikhad in the walled city. Strangely, the owners of most of these heritage structures are oblivious to the fact that their buildings are under heritage list as AMC authorities have failed to serve notice informing them of the heritage status.

AMC authorities said the building demolished at Moto Suthar Vado comes under the list of 12,500 heritage buildings in the city. The last survey of heritage buildings was done way back in 2001 by AMC in association with the French government. In 2009, AMC authorities have served notices to owners of 28 heritage buildings which are in bad state and can collapse anytime.

MARGAO: The Margao Municipal Council (MMC) has decided to take stern action against illegal handcarts hawking a variety of food stuff across the city.

With a view to identifying the number of illegal handcart hawkers plying their trade in the city, the MMC will shortly conduct a survey for the purpose, sources in the civic body informed.

The MMC has been flooded with complaints from the public about how the handcart hawkers were causing obstruction to the flow of traffic in the city.

Sources in the MMC disclosed that there are as many as 65 licensed mobile eateries in Margao, apart from an approximately equal number of other handcart operators selling fruits and other stuff. Though the civic authorities claim that they have not issued any new licenses for such mobile carts for the last four years, the mushrooming of new mobile kiosks at various places only indicates that illegal and unlicensed vendors far outnumber the legal ones.

It is learnt that the unlicensed vendors manage to carry out their trade by hoodwinking the market inspectors. The method used by them is simple. A licensed mobile hawker allows two or more persons to set up illegal handcarts. As and when any illegal cart is seized by the civic authorities, the license holder approaches the authorities claiming to be the owner of the 'legal cart' seized by them and thus manages to fool the authorities.

The mobile eateries in the city are also found to be violating all norms of hygiene and sanitation. Though the health authorities have some 16 guidelines drawn up to regulate the operation of such mobile eateries, most of them are found to be grossly violated.

Providing packaged drinking water to the consumers, using disposable plates and spoons, and storing potable water meant for cleaning utensils in stainless steel vessels fitted with taps, are just some of the guidelines that are violated with impunity.