The Indian Express   14.08.2012

More closure notices to nursing homes , IMA to take up issue at August 19 meet

Hospital registration renewals have become a vexatious issue among the medical fraternity with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) sending out a fresh lot of closure notices to nearly 25 ‘unauthorised’ nursing homes.

Assistant health officer Kishore Pakhare of PMC said at least 107 nursing homes were unauthorised as per their records and closure notices were being issued in batches to doctors running them under the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act, 1949.

Dr Dilip Sarda, president-elect of the state unit of Indian Medical Association (IMA), told Newsline that he had already received representations from at least 16 doctors who got these closure notices in the past two weeks to take up the matter with the municipal authorities. A majority of these representations pertain to lack of completion certificate for the buildings housing these nursing homes and the state IMA unit is expected to take up the issue at its meeting on August 19.

IMA city president Dr Bharati Dhorepatil had already taken up the matter with Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Pathak, wherein the latter had promised to issue guidelines and agreed to make IMA the nodal agency to facilitate its members in obtaining requisite permissions and certifications from the PMC with regard to registration of new hospitals and renewal of old ones.

PMC acting chief medical officer Dr S T Pardeshi said hospitals not complying with the specifications would be sealed. “Since these nursing homes are unauthorised, we have also urged the doctors to take precautionary measures and ensure that there is no death.”

Additional city engineer Vivek Kharwadkar said a meeting was organised to thrash out the complicated issues and the PMC was not helping the doctors in getting the unauthorised nursing homes regularised though prior permissions should have been taken. “However we can only do so within the ambit of development control rules. Nursing homes are public utility places and we also have a mandate to ensure safety of persons while enforcing DC rules.”

Doctors have, however, demanded that there was a need not to generalise the issue of lack of building completion certificate with the other requirements. Dr Prashant Ghorpade — who has a nursing home at Kharadi — has been issued a notice as there is no adequate parking space in the building.

As per norms, a five-bed nursing home needs parking space for five four-wheelers, ten two-wheelers and 15 bicycles. “The building is an old one,” says Ghorpade, who has been pursuing the matter with civic officials.

Dr Pankaj Changedia, who has a nursing home at Ashoka Nagar at Kharadi, pointed out that the builder had not taken the completion certificate from the PMC. “Not only that my nursing home is among others but there are also shops in this commercial complex. We are coming daily to the PMC and submitting documents to get appropriate documents. A co-operative housing society located here has also given a court notice to the builder,” he says.

Sarda said the notices had been served under the old Act while several of its provisions have been modified by the Bombay Nursing Home Registration (Amendment) Act 2005, which allows nursing homes, hospitals and maternity homes to renew their registration with the municipal corporation every three years and not every year as is being done now.

The Indian Express   14.08.2012

Illegal construction: Amnesty law on way

The Delhi government is drafting a new legislation that will provide a one-time amnesty to several illegal constructions, currently exempt from demolition on a temporary basis.

The Union government had cleared a special legislation in 2006, offering amnesty to thousands of illegal constructions that were in line to be sealed or razed.

The Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act was passed by Parliament on May 19, 2006, and has been extended several times since — with the latest extension valid till December 31, 2014.

But a new legislation being prepared now on Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna’s directions would make majority of these constructions permanently legitimate.

Khanna’s Officer on Special Duty Ranjan Mukherjee told Newsline: “This amnesty scheme will cover entire Delhi and will provide relief to construction carried out in unauthorised colonies, plotted colonies and Lal Dora areas.”

The scheme will provide relief to properties that came up before February 2007, when the Master Plan of Delhi 2021 was implemented.A senior official of the Delhi government’s Urban Development department said they have begun work on the proposal and could submit a draft plan to the Lieutenant-Governor as early as this month.

Ranjan Mukherjee said the L-G’s Office will study the draft plan and send it to the Union Urban Development ministry for approval, after which it will have to be cleared in Parliament.

Mukherjee said under the plan, residents of unauthorised colonies will have to submit an affidavit stating their building is structurally safe. “In plotted colonies, like Greater Kailash, residents who constructed a third floor without getting the building plan sanctioned, will get relief under this scheme,’’ Mukherjee said.

He said the scheme will conform to four criteria — “construction that is in line with building bylaws only will be covered under the scheme. The building should not obstruct free flow of air and sunlight of the neighbourhood buildings. It should be structurally safe and in accordance with fire regulations which means that the building cannot be more than 15 metres in height,’’ Mukherjee said.

A senior government official said they have already asked the city’s three municipalities for their opinion on the specifics of the plan.When the Union Urban Development ministry extended the temporary amnesty on December 14 last year, it had said impractical laws had prompted mushrooming of unauthorised constructions.

In a statement, the ministry said: “The increase in population of Delhi in the past 20 years has been more than its total population till 1980. Delhi Master Plans have not been able to cope with this growth momentum leading to increase in unauthorised colonies, slums and jhuggi-jhopris and associated problems.”