Builders should provide housing colony infrastructure too: DCB

Officials said the guidelines make it mandatory for the builders provide internal roads,water supply,electricity and drainage and sewerage facilities so that the residents don’t turn to the cantonment board for such amenities.

The DCB has decided not to provide completion certificates to the builders who fail to provide such facilities,which will make it impossible for them to sell the flats.

“This is being done as we were approached by the occupants of some housing colonies who asked the cantonment board provide them facilities in lieu of the taxes they were paying us. But the cantonment board was clear that such facilities can be provided only outside the plot area of the housing colony and not within it,which is the responsibility of the builder alone,” said a DCB official who was part of the panel that proposed the guidelines.

He said the guidelines would stay until the layout by-laws that are currently being prepared by the engineering wing of the board are completed. In a recent meeting,the DCB decided that in the absence of any guidelines,the housing colonies have come up in a haphazard manner and problems related to hygiene,water supply,electricity and roads were cropping up. “The board also noted that in some cases there have been no sale deeds between the tenant and the developer which would specify that the party provide the facilities.

“Some disputes have been referred to us in which the tenants complain that developers were backtracking on their promise of providing the necessary infrastructure,” the official said.