MC officials ‘deliberately scuttled’ One Time Settlement scheme

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, June 23

The ‘one time settlement’ (OTS) scheme for non-compoundable violations of building bylaws has come and gone (it closed on June 4, 2019) without serving much of the desired purpose of regulating violations of building norms and generating much-needed revenue by way of composition fee. Only around 60 applications were filed to the Municipal Corporation and the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) here for compounding violations and the policy met a similar fate in other major cities and towns.

It is now being alleged that the officials of the building branch of the MC – with vested interests in illegal building activity, had deliberately scuttled the policy and in the process, had cause immense loss of revenue to the urban local bodies and the Improvement Trusts across the state.

In a complaint to the Punjab Chief Minister and the Principal Secretary, Local Government Department, Punjab, president of the Council of RTI Activists Rohit Sabharwal has alleged that rather than providing a solution to the ever increasing brazen violations of building norms and illegal change of land use, the (now lapsed) policy had in a way promoted illegal building activity.

“In the period before the OTS scheme was notified certain colluding officials of the MC building branch (and likewise the LIT officials) had encourage unscrupulous builders to continue with illegal building activity with the assurance that all violations would be compounded once the OTS scheme took effect,” says the complaint.

Sabharwal maintained that each and every ‘illegal building’ or instance of illegal change of land use (CLU) in the city was very much in the knowledge of the MC officials but total inaction on their part against non-compoundable violations made it more than clear that most of the officials concerned, if not all of them, were privy to the violations.

In a bid to substantiate his allegation, Sabharwal said in 2016, he had lodged a complaint against hundreds of commercial buildings in the city which were misusing parking space. “Acting on the directions of the Department of Local Government, Punjab, the MC had conducted a comprehensive survey and submitted a report to the government which listed 148 buildings that were either misusing parking area or had inadequate parking as laid down in building bylaws,” he said.

Citing a letter (dated September 14, 2017) by the then Additional Chief Secretary, Local Government Department Satish Chandra, the complainant said it had been made clear by the government that onus for taking action against violations of building bylaws and illegal building activity or CLU lied on the MC building branch which had adequate staff strength for this purpose.

Sabharwal has urged the government to take action against erring MC officials for causing huge loss of revenue to the government which could have accrued by way of composition fee for non-compoundable violation and CLU. Further, directions be issued for taking stern action against those illegal buildings which had failed to avail the OTS scheme.