MC planning to issue notices to ineligible hotels

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 13

Municipal Corporation officials are planning to issue showcause notices to at least 46 hotels out of 214 that had applied for regularisation of their establishments under the one-time settlement policy introduced in 2016. 

Senior Town Planner IPS Randhawa said the MC was also scrutinising the remaining applications to ensure that only eligible establishments got the benefit. 

The officials said the power and water supply connections to the hotels might also be disconnected. 

Earlier, the department had issued notices to 13 of these hotels and disconnected water and electricity supply to these buildings. Department officials said that even though many people had submitted their applications for regularisation, their buildings were still under construction at the time of filling the applications. 

The officials said the scheme was applicable to operating hotels and not incomplete buildings as a ban on construction of hotels surrounding the Golden Temple was already in place. 

Local activist Sarabjit Singh Verka had filed a PIL in the HC in 2010, demanding action against illegal constructions surrounding the Golden Temple. In July 2012, the court had ordered that no new building plan would be sanctioned by the MC. In 2014, the HC had ordered a special committee to implement its earlier direction.

In 2012, the Senior Town Planner’s office had submitted a list of 105 illegal hotels. In 2014, the special committee listed 126 illegal hotels. But in 2016, when applications were invited for regularising illegal hotels under The Amritsar Walled City (Recognition of Usage) Act 2016, it received 214 applications.