Bill for regularising illegal houses won’t be introduced this time

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, December 8

The Bill for making amendments in the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act to the pave way for the regularisation of unauthorised structures in the state will not be placed in the House during the winter session of the Assembly.

Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur confirmed this while talking to newsmen here today.

The government has gone back on its decision to introduce the Bill in the current session.

Sources said the Bill was not being placed in the House as residents of Shimla core area had demanded that they too be given benefit of this amendment.

The draft Bill was placed before the Cabinet recently and discussed at length. However, there was a difference of opinion.

The TCP Department was now likely to start the process of holding personal hearing of residents of the core area of Shimla, who wanted that they be given the benefit of the amendment which was aimed at one-time settlement of illegal structures.

The Cabinet had also decided to listen to the objections and suggestions of house owners in the core area of Shimla, which comprises 18 of the 25 wards under Shimla Municipal Corporation.

Earlier, the TCP Department had promulgated an ordinance on September 6, 2014, to bring about amendments in the Act.

The core, green and heritage areas of the state capital had not been included in the ordinance as it was felt that this would amount to encouraging violators. Later the ordinance was withdrawn but these areas were still to be kept out of the relaxations and regularisation of the deviations in construction norms.

In fact, the dilly-dallying by the government on the issue of regularisation of violations in construction has led to complete uncertainty.

On the one hand there were many people who, in the hope of getting concession, undertook construction in the complete violation of norms, on the other law-abiding persons were the ones who were the worst sufferers.