8 years on, activist awaits NMC action against 3 illegal buildings

Nagpur: A court’s recent order to book assistant commissioner of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) for not acting against unauthorized constructions despite complaints has come as an encouragement for activists fighting against unauthorized buildings. Activist TH Naidu has been complaining for eight years to NMC’s Laxmi Nagar Zone about three unauthorized buildings at Saptashrungi Layout, Sonegaon. Now, citing the court order, Naidu has demanded that the civic chief take action against the concerned officials. TOI had reported on April 8 that second additional chief judicial magistrate SR Agrawal had ordered registration of offence against assistant commissioner of NMC Laxmi Nagar Zone Rajesh Karade under section 397-A (2) of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations (MMC) Act, for not taking action against unauthorized constructions despite regular complaints. Naidu in his letter to municipal commissioner Shravan Hardikar said officials of NMC Laxmi Nagar Zone were not demolishing three unauthorized buildings despite being served notice under section 53(1) of the MRTP Act on January 6, 2008. “NMC had given ultimatum of three months to Saptashrungi Developers Private Ltd to demolish the three unauthorized buildings. NMC was supposed to raze the structures after stipulated time period. I lodged complaints with zone office and also town planning department many times in last eight years, but no one took cognisance. Town planning department on March 5 wrote a letter to zone office to initiate appropriate action. Then, zone office issued a letter dated March 8 to developer asking him to demolish the three unauthorized buildings. Zone officials are just playing with my complaints and notices served under MRTP Act,” he said. Naidu is a resident of Saptashrungi Layout. “The three structures are lying abandoned for last eight years and became ground for dumping

garbage

, mosquito breeding and antisocial activities. People of the layout are facing serious problems, so demolition must begin immediately,” he said. Documents obtained under RTI Act show Saptashrungi Vihar is

spread

over 5,700 sq m with 28 plots and its open space amounts to 855 sq m. According to the agreement signed with developer on January 30, 2004, NMC was supposed to take possession of open space before release of final lot of plots. Only after Naidu’s complaints did NMC estate department take possession of 722.509 sq m open space on June 17, 2009, which is 132.491 sq m short. Naidu asked NMC to take possession of remaining area of open space from developer. Again, after many complaints, NMC froze four plots of developer that were not released as against short area of open space. Of these four plots, construction was complete on three while one is vacant. Zone office had already served notice to developer to demolish unauthorized construction on three plots on January 6, 2008. The structures had come up on the three plots even though the plots were not released and no building plan had been sanctioned. In 2013, civic chief and additional deputy municipal commissioner directed the zone office to raze the unauthorized constructions. Team from zone office demolished a small part of three unauthorized structures and then have not taken any steps till date.