The Hindu      23.06.2016 

CMDA panel told it has ‘no authority’

Wednesday’s meeting was the first one to be held after the AIADMK returned to power. —Photo: R. Ragu

Members of the Monitoring Committee of the Chennai
Metropolitan Development Authority were told on Wednesday that the
committee could only make suggestions and that it had “no authority”,
while the State government was “supreme and sovereign”.

Dharmendra
Pratap Yadav, Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development,
made these observations during the proceedings of the 57th meeting of
the committee, which convenes at regular intervals to take up important
issues such as applications from promoters for regularisation.

“We
were taking up the issue of application for regularisation of a
multi-storey building on Santhome High Road that was declared
‘unauthorised’ after thorough reporting by the CMDA. We had rejected the
application during a meeting in February itself, but it came back,”
committee member and former Member Secretary of CMDA M.G. Devasahayam
said.

“When we submitted that the application cannot
be considered for regularisation, the Housing Secretary told us: ‘You
have no authority. You cannot take a decision and can only suggest. The
government is sovereign and supreme’.”

Recording the stand

In
reply, the members of the monitoring committee — distinguished persons
in the fields of urban planning — asked the CMDA to record in the
meeting proceedings the latter’s stand that the committee had no role to
play and that it was only a consulting body.

Following
this, the meeting ended abruptly. This was the first meeting of the
committee after the AIADMK returned to power The last meeting was in
February.

Efforts to reach Mr. Yadav for a response were not successful.

The
episode is bound to stir a debate surrounding the role of the
committee, which has played a crucial role in planning the city’s
growth.

The committee has made suggestions to the CMDA on improving the implementation of rules and administration.

During
the February meeting, the application for regularisation for the
building on Santhome High Road was rejected on the grounds that the
width of the road was only 38 feet, as against the required 60 feet.

Further, the Floor Space Index of the building stood at 2.67, while the maximum permissible limit was only 1.5.