Illegal structures: PMRDA to crunch the numbers

“I have just taken over and at present the town planning department officials are helping us but we have demanded over 200 persons as additional staff to help us do a review of the survey conducted by the administration,” said Nagnure.

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He has sought a detailed report from the collectorate officials so that once the staff is ready, the data can be tallied and action initiated against illegal structures.

Last year, after a building collapsed in Narhe, the Pune district collectorate had taken up the mammoth task of surveying all structures and marking it as legal, partially legal and partially District collector Saurabh Rao had submitted a 21-page report seeking a dedicated planning authority and squad to inspect constructions.

The Narhe building collapsed in October and it was found that the necessary permissions had not been not taken.

With the survey still on, the district collector said after it was completed, a detailed report on legal, illegal, partially legal, partially illegal buildings would be submitted and notices issued under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code 1966 (section 45) and Maharashtra Regional Town Planning Act 1966 (Sections 51-57).

In his report, the collector said there was no separate planning authority to check permissions taken once building permissions are given. The report points out that it is mandatory to have a planning authority as per MRTP Act, 1966, under section 18 and after the clearance of the building proposal, the monitoring authority should check permissions.

Rao had demanded that a separate squad be appointed at the collectorate with adequate staff of about 30 for maintaining records as well as monitoring permissions. Interestingly, the proposal for a separate squad was made thrice – in October 2009, May 2010 and in April 2013.

The collector had demanded that a separate squad be appointed at the collectorate with adequate staff (nearly 30 persons) for maintaining records as well as monitoring permissions. “The CEO will be given all the details on the survey,” said Rao.