The Times of India              27.06.2013

SMC turns to diamond units to achieve impact fee target

SURAT: Having drawn a lukewarm response from residents to get their illegal structures regularized by paying impact fee, Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is now looking towards diamond units to achieve its target.

Top officials and elected leaders of the local civic body met diamond industry bigwigs at Dharmanandan Diamonds on Wednesday to sensitize the industry on impact fee regulation.

"We are targeting common buyers who in their ignorance bought some thing that is constructed illegally. Areas like Varaccha and Katargam are prime examples where majority of the illegal constructions came up under old development control regulation before 2004," an official said.

An official with town planning department Vijay Desai said, "Once obtaining building use certificate was made compulsory under new DCR after 2004 the illegal constructions declined."

Almost all the developers and builders who constructed illegal houses before 2004 are either out of the market or are not willing to take the responsibility. "Some of them claim in public that they would apply for regularization by paying impact fee, but when the time of paying comes, they go out of sight for few months to resurface later," an official said.

"We have adopted a direct approach to tap small offenders and are convincing them that getting their illegal construction legalized is in their favour. It is for this purpose that we are making visits to the industry and trying to tell the diamond workforce to get their constructions legalized," chairman of standing committee Rajesh Desai said.

Till now SMC has received 39,059 applications against the estimated more than 1 lakh illegal constructions in the city. Maximum of 17,623 applications have been received from Varaccha, while 4,985 are from Katargam zone of the city.