The Delhi high court has pulled up the municipal corporations of the city for allowing people to build unauthorised constructions and has directed the civic bodies to ensure that no such structures co
The Delhi high court has pulled up the municipal corporations of the city for allowing people to build unauthorised constructions and has directed the civic bodies to ensure that no such structures come up anywhere.
“There are so many unauthorised constructions in the city. How could you allow such huge structures to come up ” a bench of chief justice G. Rohini and justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal asked the civic bodies. The bench directed them to “ensure no such unauthorised constructions come up anywhere in the city” and disposed of a PIL by a south Delhi resident for demolition of such constructions. In their defence, the corporations contended that they have been periodically taking action against unauthorised constructions by issuing show cause notices and sealing them, but the people responsible for building such structures keep raising new ones.
The corporations also said they have sought help of the police to keep a watch over properties which have been identified as unauthorised. In a bid to curtail such illegal constructions, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) had introduced a system of digital approval of building plans in April this year. The system seems to be gaining in popularity with over 600 applications received in the first three months of its launch. “Till June end, a total of 630 building plans were received for approval out of which 553 were cleared online. 284 of these approved maps were also issued digitally and only 9 applications were rejected due to incomplete information,” said a senior SDMC official.
The civic body holds the distinction of being the only municipal corporation in the country to have introduced online approval of building plans through a single window system issuing the first such digitised building plan on May 27, said the official. The online system has speeded up the process of approval and issuing of digitised maps by the civic body which earlier used to take months and involved physical effort with the applicants having to repeatedly visit the building department offices.
Currently all categories of building plans are being approved within 14 days. The maps of residential buildings are normally issued within a week.
