Corporation’s online updates fail to wow public

Pune Mirror‎‎‎: Pune: Wednesday, April 27, 2016.

The urban development department's order directs municipal websites to make details of all the building projects transparent to citizens.

The state urban development department has issued an order to all the municipal corporations asking to update their websites with details related to ongoing building projects in their jurisdiction.

Now, buyers will have complete access to documents such as building permission, occupancy certificates, etc, on these sites.

Additionally, unauthorised construction complaints, too, will be updated on municipal websites.

The order has been issued under Section 4 of the Right to Information (RTI) act.

The order states: "There are demands from people under the RTI Act to provide papers related to building permission, occupancy certificates, unauthorised construction complaints and the actions taken on complaints. Uploading all this information on the sites will prove helpful to citizens. The entire system will become transparent to buyers."

Meanwhile, people stated the idea to be a damp squib.

Sudhakar Velankar, founder president of the Grahak Hitwardhini, said, "It is a temporary solution. If the government really wants to help consumers then they should implement the real estate-regulatory bill. A majority of consumer court cases are related to incomplete information provided by developers. On many occasions, the developer delays the projects and refuses to provide complete documents to consumers. Thus, the implementation of the real estate-regulatory bill is necessary."

Victim of a stalled building project, Satish Soman, added, "The idea won't work as the corporations will never follow the order. Government has only issued the order to show the public that it cares."

Meanwhile, advocate Dnyanraj Sant, lawyer in the consumer court, shared, "Out of the 200 cases registered in the consumer court, more than 70 per cent are related to developers and builders. Nothing is going to happen with this new order."

Developers have expressed disagreement with the department's order.

Satish Mager, managing director of the Magarpatta Township Development and Construction Company, explained, "It is completely wrong to share such vital details with everyone on the site. The information is clearly restricted to the builder and the flat owner."

He continued, "If the buyers want the details, we are willing to provide them. There is absolutely no need to make this information transparent to all."

Meanwhile, Prashant Waghmare, city engineer of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), added, "We have already started taking steps to upload the information on the site."