Illegal building being built under Ludhiana civic body ’s nose
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, July 31
Despite a multi-storey illegal building was being built at Bhadaur House opposite AC Market right under the nose of the Municipal Corporation’s Zone A office for over a week, MC officials, who woke up from their slumber on Wednesday, came to demolish the building. However, they had to return empty-handed as they managed to demolish only a portion of the building by using an earth mover.
Though Bhadaur House is just 250 m to 300 m away from the MC’s Zone A office, officials have failed to notice the ongoing violation.
Interestingly, the building was being constructed after covering it with big hoarding having a picture of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, wishing Happy Independence Day on behalf of the Aam Aadmi Party. The hoarding was allegedly put up to carry on the illegal construction and to give an impression that the owner enjoys close rapport with ruling party leaders.
The Bhadaur House area was built by the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) under the booth scheme where only construction of the ground floor is permitted. However, in the entire Bhadaur House area, 99 per cent buildings are multi-storey. These are built in violations of the building bylaws. Still, they were allowed to be constructed, reason better known to officials. When this new construction of a multi-storey building started over a week ago, no official paid heed towards it. The owner had been doing the construction work during night so that he could escape from legal action. The lintel of the first floor of the building was already built and now, the preparation were on to lay the lintel of the second floor.
When asked about the reason behind not demolishing the entire building despite taking a JCB along, Maninder Bedi, Assistant Town Planner, Zone A, said due to space constraint, the earth mover could not demolish the entire structure rather a portion of a side wall on the first floor was demolished. Now, a manual drill machine would be sent to demolish the illegal structure.
Bedi said the hoarding of CM Bhagwant Mann put up on the building was also removed by the MC team.
