Audit finds 170 illegal buildings under Thiruvananthapuram civic body limits
While not a single unauthorized building was regularized within corporation limits since February when the government issued notification for regularization, the town planning wing has detected 170 unauthorized constructions in the city as per the latest inspection conducted by the officials. The town planning wing was recently directed to take an audit on status of action taken against unauthorized constructions and identify new violations. Thus information was collected from all the zonal offices. 170 unauthorized constructions have been identified in wards coming under five zonal offices; Vizhinjam, Fort, Nemom, Vattiyoorkavu and Thiruvallom. Data from six remaining zonal offices will be compiled by this week, officials said. Fifty buildings including highrises were identified where parking slots earmarked in building plan were altered and used for other purposes. PalayamRajan, chairman, welfare standing committee said that those violators who have evaded the regularization process are being identified as part of the audit. “Despite an opportunity for legalizing constructions, there have been few responses so far. During the past two months, we have been collecting data on unauthorized constructions,” said Rajan. The detailed report on unauthorized constructions and status of action will be presented in the upcoming steering committee meeting. Vizhinjam zonal office reported the highest number of unauthorized constructions. A total of 89 unauthorized constructions were identified at Vizhinjam. In 2013, corporation had issued provisional order to 37 unauthorized constructions in Vizhinjam, but no follow up action was initiated. As per the procedure, a provisional order (PO) is first issued and then hearing is conducted. After hearing, the documents are verified and a confirmation order (CO) declaring the building as unauthorized is issued. The inspection has revealed that no demolition activity was pursued during the past five years in many cases where PO and CO were issued. This has also resulted in huge revenue loss for corporation as these buildings were seldom assessed. The civic body has also had a bad repute in terms of dealing with unauthorized constructions. The city corporation had taken action on less than 100 unauthorized constructions out of over 1,000 ones reported by the revenue and engineering wings, according to the report of comptroller and auditor general on local self-government institutions (March 2015). As per the report, action was taken in only six out of 367 unauthorized constructions recorded by the revenue section and 59 out of 634 noticed by the engineering section between 2011-12 and 2014-15. In October 2013, chief town planner (vigilance) detected 25 unauthorized constructions in the city. While in some cases, the violators win favourable court orders, the civic body has not been able to counter them legally.
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