House owners of merged areas for waiving compounding fee

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 17

House owners of the merged areas, SADA areas and Rampur Nagar panchayats, under the banner of Up-Nagariya Jan Kalyan Samanvya Samiti (UNJKSS), met Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh at the Vidhan Sabha here today. They urged him to waive off the huge compounding fee and structural safety certificate and extend the last date for submission of application up to May 30 in public interest.

The Chief Minister gave the house owners, who were accompanied by local councilors, including Kusumpati MLA Anirudh Singh, a patient hearing and assured them that he would look into their pending demands. The delegation included Samiti president Chanderpaul Mehta, vice-president Bhupender Singh Kunwar and local councilors.

Pleading the case of the house owners, UNJKSS general secretary Govind Chatranta told the Chief Minister that the Rs 1,000 per sq m computing charges in the present TCP Bill on house regularisation was huge as it would cost more than Rs 6 lakh, including a huge fee on structural safety certificate to regularise a house.

“The houses in the merged areas are being treated as total deviation, which is unjustified even under the old TCP rules,” he pleaded.

The house owners requested the Chief Minister that the last date for submitting the applications should be extended from March 31 to May 30 as officials were busy in the ongoing Assembly session.

They pleaded the merged areas were providing housing to more than 50 per cent of the capital city’s population and the successive governments had not fulfilled their long-pending demands of “one-time settlement” to regularise their houses.

Chatranta said the Samiti has called the meeting of the house owners on March 25 as they are awaiting the government’s response in this regard. “We are hopeful that the Chief Minister will fulfill our genuine demands,” he added.