Indian Express 05.10.2010
External agency should scan construction activity, says Zagade
Express News Service Tags : construction, civic staff, Zagade Posted: Tue Oct 05 2010, 05:33 hrs
Pune: Expressing the need for verifying city’s construction activity to ensure it followed all norms, Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade on Monday said an external agency can only carry out the specialised job as it was improper to do the verification of construction activity that have been approved by the civic staff.“There is a definite case to look into each construction activity that was given permission and that was done. The permissions have been given by the civic staff and it would be improper to verify the construction activity through them,” Zagade told reporters.
He said there has been illegal construction within the city jurisdiction and in some cases construction in water body areas was flouting the rules. A visit to affected place has revealed that many citizens were residing without occupancy certificate issued by the civic body, he said, “Citizens should purchase apartments after ensuring that the developer has got the occupancy certificate for the building.”
The civic administration would soon take up a drive across the city to ensure that each building has valid occupany certificate, he said, adding that if there are 60 per cent building without the occupancy certificate then the civic administration has failed in performing its duties.
The commissioner said a demand of 1,000 additional civic staff has been sought for action against the encroachments in the city. “There are 2,700 engineers with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) while the PMC has around 450 engineers despite the fact that the city has one third of the population compared to Mumbai,” Zagade said. “There was a need to increase the staff which has not taken place even after the city’s population has increased in last few years.”
The work on clearing the natural stream of nullah that got flooded recently in Kothrud has begun and identification of hot spots to remove the encroachments is being done. The PMC would also ensure that the expenditure for anti-encroachment work gets reflected in the next year budget, he said, adding, efforts are being made to appoint a dedicated officer for looking into cases related to encroachments across the city. Zagade refused to comment when asked about the pending proposal in the standing committee on appointing retired high court judge for planning action against illegal construction activities.
