‘Colonisers owe Rs 18 cr to MC’

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 30

Colonisers owe crores of rupees to the Municipal Corporation, revealed a report on regularisation of colonies submitted by the MC’s Town Planning Department to the Building and Roads Ad-hoc Committee on Thursday.

According to sources in the ad-hoc committee, from 2013 to 2018, 82 colonisers had approached the department for regularisation of colonies and of these, 42 colonies were regularised, while the remaining requests were rejected because these did not fulfil the terms and conditions set by the state government.

Chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Nirmal Singh Nimma, said even after getting refusal from the MC, 40 colonies were established. “This is a big scandal. The 40 colonisers didn’t pay even a single penny to the MC during the five years, leading to losses of around Rs6.15 crores to the civic body. On the other hand, the 42 colonies that were regularised paid only 10% of the total amount and the remaining 90% was still pending. They (42 colonisers who got approval) owe Rs2.25 crore to the MC. The total amount owed to the civic body, along with interest, is a whopping Rs 18 crore,” Nimma said.

The Joint Commissioner, MC, Harcharan Singh, said a meeting with the regularisation committee will be held soon to decide on the issue.

“The MC Commissioner is the head of the committee and officials at the sub-registrar office of the state Revenue Department and from the Fire Department are members of the committee. The colonisers were not given approval to carve out colonies but still they went ahead, so FIRs will be registered against them,” the Joint Commissioner said.

Ad-hoc committee boycotts meeting

A meeting was scheduled between the ad-hoc committee and the Joint Commissioner on Thursday, but when the latter did not turn up, the ad-hoc committee members boycotted the meeting and said they would attend the meeting when the Joint Commissioner was free. The chairman said the last time, too, the Joint Commissioner didn’t attend the meeting and this leading to delay in resolution of important issues.

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