MCB failure to address illegal buildings issue goes unrecorded

The Tribune: Bhatinda: Wednesday, September 13, 2017.

An alleged lapse on the part of officials of the Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) has come to the fore as the issue of illegal buildings coming up in the city was raised by councilors in the general house meeting held on September 6, but it was not mentioned in the proceedings of the meeting.

Irked over which, councillor Gursewak Mann met Mayor Balwant Rai Nath and lodged his protest.

Gursewak Mann has also written a letter to Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, along with senior officials of the department over the issue.

Councillors Gursewak Mann, Nirmal Singh Sandhu and Harvinder Ganju had written a letter on August 10 regarding the illegal buildings coming up in street number 31 of Paras Ram Nagar.

Afterwards, Mayor Balwant Rai Nath wrote a letter to the Commissioner to stop the construction of illegal buildings in Paras Ram Nagar.

In the letter, he had written that the map of the building was approved but it was passed by ignoring the norms or rules. However, despite the Mayor’s letter, the issue was suppressed.

Later, councillors raised the issue in the recently held general house meeting but it was not mentioned in the house proceedings.

While talking to Bathinda Tribune, councillor Gursewak Mann said it was shocking and surprising that he raised three issues in the meeting but MCB officials deliberately didn’t put anything on record in the meeting proceedings, which was wrong and he had lodged a complaint over this issue with senior officials of the Local Bodies Department.

Blame it on political interference or connivance of the field staff of the building branch of the Municipal Corporation, commercial buildings are coming up in a big way in blatant violation of building bylaws in almost all parts of the city.

The regulatory and enforcement work of the building branch is confined to issuing notices for violations or at best composition of offences in a hush-hush manner.

As per the information sought under the RTI Act, the MCB has stated that 260 notices have been issued in the past five years from February 1, 2012 to April 30, 2017, but nothing has been revealed about the action taken after issuing the notices.

It is also surprising that most of the 260 notices are sent under Sections 259, 260, 261 and 262 of the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act 1976.