Consumer group, architects to move court

By V.Prem Shanker

CHENNAI, OCT. 3. The revised regularisation scheme announced by CMDA recently has evoked sharp reaction from various quarters. This includes a puzzled response to fresh opportunity being given for structures to be regularised, despite the closure of the scheme months ago.

Builders, flat owners and residents alike say they are trying to read some meaning into the ``confusing signals''. The issue is that the enforcement of the building regulations and the ethics of the scheme figure in responses to the revised scheme.

The consumer group CAG feels that the Government is not taking the larger issue into consideration. ``The revised regularisation scheme is only a revenue generating exercise and nothing more,'' says Mr. Bharath Jairaj of CAG.

The Supreme Court had indicated in its recent ruling that the Government should pay more attention to enforcement, rather than focus only on the issue of regularisation measures. But, the Government had failed to acknowledge this, he said.

The CAG is planning to challenge the present move of the Government. It alleges that the Government has not made it clear as to `what or whom the Government is trying to deter'.

By coming out with such measures, those who violate norms and the officials who have failed to perform their duty while working with the law enforcing authorities are being encouraged, they charge.

The Government in its appeal had submitted that about 50 per cent of the city constructions were violating norms and it was impossible to bring down all the constructions.

However, not one construction has been brought down for violating norms and those violating the regulations were aware of this, he said. The Indian Institute of Architects is also planning to move the courts against the revised regularisation norms.

A spokesman for the Institute, Mr. R. Ramaraju, said

that the earlier programme of 1998 and its modified version had only given more time for allowing illegal constructions to complete their work and apply.

Moreover, ``people found no difference before or after the regularisation launched previously. There is no new enforcement mechanism and this would only leave the owners of deviated constructions without any compulsion to apply for regularisation,'' he said.

Advocate, Mr. K. M. Vijayan, and head of Fifth Pillar, an organisation working to curb corruption, said that regularisation was plainly an attempt to cover up the inability of the Government's strict law enforcement, using revenue generation as a tool.

The revised regularisation will only pave the way for residents to anticipate further reduction in the penalty, he says. An individual who has purchased a flat or a home recently (even after the earlier scheme was declared closed) when asked to pay huge sum as penalty for no fault of his, will feel duped by the Government. There is strong consumer feeling that the property owner is made to pay the price for the failure of the authorities in preventing builders from violating.

``The CMDA knows who is violating all along, but has no effective measures to stop the builder or promoter, but waits for the property to be sold before penalising the middle class buyer, who has no control over the process,'' buyers say.

Mr. N. K. Sundaram of the Builders' Association of India (Southern Centre) said that the plans and documentation relating to property and their validity were often too complicated from the regulatory point of view, and it is not proper to put the onus of construction according to plan, on the buyer, he says.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Films with some fireworks
Next     : New trustees take over Pachaiyappa's Trust Board