Ludhiana: Chief Vigilance Officer seeks report on bylaw violations

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, September 12

There is virtual scramble among field staff and supervisory officials of the building branch of the Municipal Corporation here as amidst widespread complaints of blatant violations of building bylaws, and especially connivance of the MC employees in proliferation of such buildings all across the city, the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of the Local Government Department, Punjab, has sought a detailed report on violations of building bylaws.

Sources in the MC indicated that the CVO had asked the MC Commissioner to submit details of all pending or unprocessed challans, pending recovery of composition fee and action taken, if any, for removal of non-compoundable violations in such illegal commercial buildings within a period of one week.

While the CVO has taken up the matter of unending construction of illegal commercial buildings in the city, the violations of building norms continue unabated obviously with the connivance or tacit approval of MC employees and officials. In this regard, a spate of complaints have been lodged with the Additional Chief Secretary and other senior government functionaries about commercial buildings under construction.

In two such complaints lodged with the state government, the secretary, Council of RTI Activists, Arvind Sharma, and a socil activist, Gajjan Singh Jassal, have alleged that illegal commercial buildings were being raised with impunity in areas such as Model Town, Model Town Extension, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Main Pakhowal Road without approved building plans and without change of land use.

“Most of the under-construction commercial buildings are being raised in violation of buildings norms like excess coverage, no provision for parking spaces and and in some cases even by encroaching upon parts of public streets and roads,” said the complainant.

While Sharma has attached photographic evidence of the illegal buildings with his complaint, Jassal has maintained that at least 24 commercial buildings were under construction in C-zone of the city alone. That no penal actions such as issuing challans, compounding the violations or demolition of non-compoundable violations had apparently been taken against the builders concerned was evidence of complicity of the field staff and their supervisory officials, said both complainants.

Officials of the MC, however, claimed that directions had already been issued to all ATPs for issuing challans and taking date-bound action for composition of compoundable violations as well as demolition of all buildings or portions which were non-compoundable.

What complainants say

In two complaints lodged with the state government, the secretary, Council of RTI Activists, Arvind Sharma, and a socil activist, Gajjan Singh Jassal, have alleged that illegal commercial buildings are being raised with impunity in areas such as Model Town, Model Town Extension, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Main Pakhowal Road without approved building plans and without change of land use.

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