Urban News

The Pioneer  24.11.2010

PNS | Shimla

A Single Umbrella Committee would be constituted for the approval to construction in Municipal Corporation area of Shimla to ensure planned construction besides providing relief to the people from cumbersome procedure to secure approval of the map. This was proposed in a Cabinet Sub Committee meeting held on Tuesday under the chairmanship of State Revenue Minister Thakur Gulab Singh. He said that the Cabinet Sub Committee also proposed to constitute Heritage Advisory Committee to consider and recommend cases of construction and map approval to the Single Umbrella Committee for final approval. He said that the Committee would meet atleast once in a month and ensure speedy disposal of cases. It was decided that whole map approval process in the Municipal Corporation area would fall under the domain of Single Umbrella Committee. He said that the Heritage Advisory panel would be headed by director, Town and Country planning with eminent architects, urban design architects and historians its members. He said this was being done to maintain the glory of Shimla.

The Pioneer  24.11.2010

Parvaiz Sultan | New Delhi

The survey of properties by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to ascertain the structural strength of the buildings may turn out to be a burden on the common man.

The MCD has said that the amount spent on survey of buildings by the civic agency will be recovered from the property owners as property tax dues. Following the Lalita Park building collapse incident, MCD Commissioner KS Mehra had said after the inspection of properties situated on the Yamuna riverbed up to 300 metres away, the exercise will be carried out in all 12 zones of Delhi also.

A senior official of the Engineering Department of the MCD said the cost of the survey of 38 properties in Lalita Park area of Laxmi Nagar, to be jointly conducted by a team of Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) and MCD engineers, will be borne by the civic agency. However, he clarified the civic agency will recover entire money spent on the exercise from the property owners. The official refused to divulge more details and payment arrangement with the CBRI.

“It will not be possible to bear all expenses as the civic body is already facing financial crisis. For 38 properties in Lalita Park area, the MCD will shell out but after that what will be the arrangement, we will have to decide. But we will charge the cost of the survey from individual property owner as property tax dues in the remaining part of the city,” he said.

On the other hand, several elected members of the body are apprehensive about the move. Their argument is while the MCD has been incapable of recovering existing or outstanding property tax from property owners, how it can be expected that it will recover the cost of survey?

Chairman of Standing Committee Yogender Chandolia said the civic has no option but has to collect those expenses from people. “It is correct, the MCD has failed to achieve the property tax target fixed in the Budget, but that is different thing altogether. How much we will charge and how we will recover it as dues will be decided later. At present, our priority is safety of people of Delhi,” said he.

Meanwhile, Leader of the House Subhash Arya said nearly 8,000 more properties situated in the riverbed had been surveyed. “We have set up 12 teams of 36 engineers for the survey. They have survey around 8, 000 properties until now,” said he.