Urban News

The Pioneer  25.11.2010

Geetika Thakur | Chandigarh

Putting an end to the blatant destruction of the planned city and its further planned growth by increasing religious encroachments, city administration made it a matter of priority and succeeded to remove six such major religious encroachments from the city.

Getting along with the efforts of Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), city’s Deputy Commissioner (DC) Ashima Brar has achieved to boost up HUDA’s anti-encroachment drive in the area and remove six such encroachments which have defaced the city.

The mushrooming of illegal religious structures in the city has always been an annoying factor for denizens and even administration. The city is having 29 such religious encroachments in all at various areas which have always been a bone of contention.

Panchkula Deputy Commissioner Ashima Brar said: “There are a total of 29 such encroachments and we have been working on all the cases since long minutely in order to decide which need quick removal and which all can be relocated or can be regularised. Where six have been removed, we are all ready to remove other three soon.”

“The administration and HUDA always faced problems due to illegal religious encroachments but had to handle it with care due to the religious factor attached to it. But we also started getting numerous complaints from the residents regarding inconvenience faced by them due to these religious structures,” she added.

She shared that the district administration had been conducting meetings with all the concerned departments whose lands had been encroached by these religious bodies. The work on these reports has been completed and policies are being framed by all the departments to deal with these illegal religious structures.

Earlier, a committee was also formed by the administration especially to look into the matter concerning removal, regularisation and reallocation of these 29 religious structures. The report was given by this committee through and after that decision has been taken to remove six such structures.

“The only work which is left is to be decided which structures need to be regularised and which need to be relocated. The rest 20 structures will either be relocated or regularised on early basis. The decision in this regard will be out very soon,” added Brar.

All this is the result of last year’s Supreme Court’s orders on September 29 has banned illegal religious structures on public land. This puts the onus of preventing new unauthorized construction on public land on the chief secretaries of states and union territories.

Following which, the state government stated that they will be dealing on a case to case basis to do justice to each case but gave an affidavit that such fresh constructions will be prevented and district magistrates will be responsible.

With no religious structure earlier, a mazaar near Zirakpur-Panchkula barrier came up in a few months and with time they initially made a boundary fence and then erected a tin roof where a priest sits all the time.

HUDA had woke up after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had demolished five illegal religious structures on NH-73 from Panchkula to Yamunanagar and on NH-21 from Panchkula to Kalka recently.

The Pioneer  25.11.2010

Staff Reporter | New Delhi

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi will demolish or seal unauthorised portion of buildings in the Capital. The move of the civic agency came after the preliminary survey of the properties in Lalita Park area of East Delhi.

Municipal Commissioner KS Mehra on Wednesday said during the ongoing survey being undertaken by the MCD the height of buildings in approved, unauthorised and unauthorised residential colonies will be checked. It has been found that several property owners have raised their structures more than 15 meters’ height illegally, which will be demolished or sealed, said he.

“It has come in our notice that several buildings are more than 15 metres high, which is not permitted and they need to be demolished or sealed. The MCD will soon be taken action against them. The survey is still going on,” said he. The Commissioner further added the Chief Vigilance Officer has sought some more time to submit the enquiry report of the incident as several complications have come up during the course of investigation.

“CVO has seized some documents also and required a few more records, which is not available at the moment. To thoroughly probe the matter, he needs to know when the collapsed building was constructed and when it was regularised? How were responsible for that? After the investigation, appropriate action will be taken as per the recommendation of the CVO report,” Mehra also stated.

It was also said experts from Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) has collected some samples for testing, they will inspect structures in Laxmi Nagar again soon. “CBRI team will visit the area again including structural survey of the properties and following its recommendations, the action will be initiated. If one needs retrofitting or demolished, will be decided by MCD as per their suggestions,” the MCD official also said.

Meanwhile, it was also informed the sealing drive in Paharganj area against guest houses or hotels not having proper license to run business activities at their respective properties.

“I have received a representation from the owners of the guest houses and hotels of the area, they ask for more time to response to the show-cause notices issued to them. They have been given a week time. If they submit relevant documents to support their claim, they will be allowed to continue as per the law,” said Mehra after the standing committee meeting at the Town Hall.

The owners of those properties have been directed to make their case before Deputy Commissioner of Sadar Paharganj Zone with appropriate documents. On Tuesday, the civic body sealed three guest houses in the area after they failed to comply with the show cause notices issued to them by the MCD.

Earlier, Opposition party in Congress led by Leader of Opposition Jai Kishan Sharma demonstrated before Commissioner’s office in the afternoon. They were protesting against the delay in filing the CVO report of the Lalita Park incident. Sharma demanded the investigation should be completed as soon as possible and guilty must be punished.