Indian Express 19.10.2010
1996 circular promoting illegal constructions: activists
Express News Service Tags : Pune Municipal Corporation, PMC, Mahesh Zagade Posted: Tue Oct 19 2010, 06:32 hrs
Pune: While the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has started taking action against illegal constructions across the city on the directives of Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade, civic activists point a 1996 circular by the then city engineer of the PMC allows builders and people to regularise illegal constructions by paying negligible penalty amount.Activists Vivek Velankar, Vishwas Sahasrabuddhe and Jugal Rathi said on Monday taking advantage of this circular, many builders have been blatantly flouting the development control rules and then later on regularise the constructions. They demanded that the civic body to cancel this circular at the earliest.
“On March 14 in 1996, the then city engineer of PMC M B Harihar had issued a circular, which can regularise the illegal constructions by paying nominal charges later. This has become a common practice and this circular is encouraging such malpractices. The penalty charges are very nominal, approximately Rs 1,000 per slab, which is peanuts for the builders,” Velankar said. The activists said they had submitted a list of about 30 illegal constructions in various areas of the city but no action had been initiated by the civic administration.
