MC acts tough against hotel

Ravneet Singh
Tribune News Service
Patiala, October 23

The Patiala Municipal Corporation (MC) has cancelled the building plan of the extended part of Corner Hotel near the city bus stand.

 The Tribune in its October 21 edition had reported that the MC failed to act against the illegal construction’. The MC had sent a number of notices to the proprietors and offered them chances to clear their stand in this regard after which the step was initiated.

Meanwhile, the MC has not acted against its officials, who were on duty during the illegal construction. Joint Commissioner Ankur Mahendru said, “Now, we will send notices to MC employees and demand clarification from them,” he said.

An MC official said the corporation would now send a notice to the owners regarding the order of demolition. Later, the MC would send a demolition order to the owners within a week. If the owners failed to demolish the building, then the MC would itself demolish the structure.

The MC had in May this year sent a notice to the hotel owners, two years after receiving a notification regarding ‘illegal construction’ in April 2016.

After a thorough investigation by the corporation, the owners were found to have concealed provisions mentioned in a former registration done for the site. The hotel owners had also not constructed the stilt parking on the ground floor as shown in the map passed by the MC. Further, the owner did not procure NOC from the PWD and the Department of Forests for new construction on the site. The new part of the building has been constructed within 60+5 metres range of the railway overbridge, which is a no-construction-zone.

The MC had also found irregularity on the part of its employees. As per a report, an official of the corporation had stated that construction on the site had been stopped, which later continued and was completed. The MC found that the ATP in question repeatedly sent notices to the owner for acquiring NOC for the site instead of cancelling the building plan Sukhwinder Singh, son of the owner Jasjeet Kaur, refrained from commenting on the issue.    MC Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Khaira said the plan had been cancelled and necessary steps would be followed hereafter.