SHIMLA, July 28: Holding the previous Congress government responsible for large scale illegal constructions and high-rise buildings, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today said in the state Assembly that prior approval of the building plans would be made mandatory for all new constructions in the hill towns.Chief Minister informed the House that a record 10,559 illegal constructions had been detected in 10 different towns of the state and these included government buildings. The maximum were in Shimla (3,949) and all these were constructed without the approval of the Town and Country Planning Department.Harsh Mahajan, Congress MLA, who had raised the issue in the question hour, also drew government's attention towards 12-storey High Court building, which had been constructed without the mandatory clearance of the town and country planning department. Mahajan wanted to know the measures which the government was planning to taken in such cases.Dhumal said while steps were being taken to grant pending approvals to such already constructed buildings but law would be enforced strictly in future. The government would not allow any new building to come up without obtaining mandatory approvals. He said that notices had already been given in 6,694 cases.In reply to a question of Kaul Singh Thakur, Chief Minister rejected the plea to grant unemployment allowance to jobless youths. He said that there were 7.16 lakh unemployed youths registered in the employment exchanges, of which 18,829 were post graduates and 53,595 were graduates. He, however, said the government was taking steps to create new job avenues for the jobless.The CM said that the state government had decided to provide jobs to the trained youths on batch wise basis. In reply to question of Brij Biharai Butial, Minister for Animal Husbandry Prakash Chaudhry ruled out the possibility of granting non-practice allowance to veterinary pharmacists.While answering a question of Viplove Thakur, Chief Parliamentary Secretary Roop Dass Kashyap said that the government and Shimla Municipal Corporation had awarded the work for restoration of tunnel at Lower Bazar to a Delhi based firm.Chief Minister said in a written reply that over 1.40 lakh cases were pending in the state High Court. He said 72,488 cases were one to two year old and other 43,252 cases were over two years old. Nearly 25,087 cases were pending for more than three years.
