UT in a fix over what is PG accommodation

For the record,the Estate Office has pegged over 500 PG accommodations in the city — among them,only five are registered with it. This,despite the fact that that there are no charges for registering a PG accommodation.

As laid down by the department,a PG accommodation has to fulfill certain guidelines laid down by the department — the owner should reside on the same premises,register has to be maintained by the owner depicting details of the PGs,there should be no building violation in the house and the owner should have a completion certificate from the EO,besides other guidelines.

However,the biggest deterrent for the PG owner against registering is the commercial charges that they have to pay for water and electricity usage.

Consequently,when the Estate Office’s Misuse Branch recently served notices to the residents of Sector 15 for misusing the premises by illegally running paying guest accommodation,they were up in arms against the EO officials.

In a representation sent to Deputy Commissioner Brijendra Singh on Tuesday,the residents have alleged that they have been issued the notices wrongly,as they had only kept tenants and not PGs and they were not providing them with food. The members of the Welfare Society,in the representation,have further stated that the Estate Office,adopting a pick and choose policy,have served notices only to a selected few — leaving many others who are running unregistered PG accommodations in the same sector.

When asked,a senior Estate Office official said: “We are getting a detailed report prepared on the paying guests accommodations in the city. In any case,there is no way that these notices could be taken back. They are bound to pay the misuse charges.”