When the
President does it, that means that it's not illegal….Richard M.
Nixon
Words
by the infamous Richard M. Nixon, who was the 37th President of the United
States, serving from 1969 to 1974, when he became the only president to resign
the office for the “Watergate” scandal. And on one side if the above word by
him speaks about the arrogance of the rulers for their powers to rule the
Country or State, at the same time let’s not ignore the irony of the fate which
Mr. Nixon met as a President!
Though
most of our Indian Rulers seems to take the verbal part of the infamous US
President or else if you have been reading the recent newspapers’ you wouldn’t
have missed headlines about illegal construction & the battle going against
them. Joke is the battle is by our Judicial System with the ruling Govt, such
the condition of our so called number of
construction or real estate governing bodies all over the State! In our
previous many meets in this column I have named the numbers of Govt Depts/ Bodies
who are supposed to control the construction of various types of buildings. In
the Pune city as well surrounding itself there are two Municipal corporations,
three Cantonments, one Development Authority & then Collector itself with
assistance of Town Planning! Off course
then there is in queue the famous most awaited planning brain child of all i.e.
Pune Regional Development Control Authority, which even God won’t know when
will come in existence!
The
scene regarding illegal constructions is same all around the State but let’s
focus to our beloved city i.e. Pune. With so many governing bodies yet what we
see, over one lac numbers of illegal structures only in PCMC & that’s the
figure as per filed by the officers only. No such record has yet been published
by Collector or PMC yet approximately 4 years back I have been part of the
committee which has been invited by the collector then, for a presentation
about reformation in working at collector office as well challenges in front of
the system. Then only in few survey numbers of Ambegoan, a southern city part,
was having more that hundred illegal structures is what collector himself has
admitted! Imagine what must have been figure all around the collector’s
jurisdiction! Cantonments were never famous for their town or city planning
scheme so lesser we speak about them is better.
And
then there was news very recently in media about High Court asking Govt to
provide separate courts as well police stations to control illegal constructions!
Sometimes I really pity Indian Courts & Judges, how frustrated they
must be feeling against shameless officials & rulers, as first these people
allow the illegal construction to prosper & then they don't give any
machinery or support to remove the same but use all their power to regularize
any such construction! Because with repeated warnings by various courts yet
hardly few illegal structures have been demolished is a fact & more over
now we are hearing the news that State Govt is going to regularize all illegal
constructions till March 13! A common man like me is bound to think, why to
make such phrase of regularizing illegal constructions till this or that date, let’s
remove all rules & regulations & make this State a free port, no rules
& regulations will be there for housing industry! Why to bother all the
system to make rules & then change them to accommodate the illegal structures,
waste time of judicially & so many man hours! It will sort out all such
problems of law & enforcement, let everybody build as per his wish &
will instead making mockery of the rules & laws. Why waste time in
organizing seminars & discussions about urbanization & city planning
& issues like that when at the end all structures are coming on same
platform! In one such seminar about urbanization & its problems, recently
one of the senior minister of State warned the ruling Govt itself of which he
also is a part, about threat from illegal structures! I
really appreciate the courage of our politicians to make public statements
about encroachment, illegality, wrong policies & thrash their own Govt! And
people are also fool enough to accept them & clap over such statements,
issue is who has stopped these rulers to put the foot down & stop all
illegality!
Why can’t such leaders order their respective
department to take strong action on any encroachments instead making such
statements in some seminar! And take same stand in cabinet meetings where the
policies are laid! Rather on one side rulers are making such false statement on
public forum for gaining popularity & on other side every ruling party is busy
in proving how demolishing of illegal structures will be harming the interest
of so called innocent common man & at the same time every Municipal
Corporation is crying over no support by police force for taking action on
illegal constructions, is a fact. What one should conclude from such behavior
pattern of the rulers?
Years after years are passing & the simplest
thing like publishing & sanctioning of city development plan & issues
like BDP i.e. bio diversity parks reservations over hills we can’t finalize
& we speak about curbing encroachments & illegal construction! We are unable to provide very basic infrastructure
like water, power, hygiene & education in villages or small towns &
then there are no jobs. So millions are moving to bigger cities or Metros
making them buckle by this migration & we are not doing anything either to
improve or control this growth or we are not doing anything to stop this
migration towards Metros. Agreed we are one country & the constitutional
right allows every citizen of this country to choose his place to work &
live. But isn’t it important that why millions choose to migrate at some
particular place only & what will be condition of such places after few
years if the migration continues with this pace? It’s this migration which is
the main cause of the illegal construction & encroachments over public
lands, is the Govt so fool to understand which even a ten year boy can tell!
There is a set
channel for systematic encroachments now i.e. first install hutments on public
reservation lands or private places which are hill top hill slopes or no
development type zones. Provide them all basic infrastructural things like
water, power, roads, public toilets (however bad shape they may be in) &
then regularize them as declared slum & then under slum development start
SRA i.e. slum rehabilitation authority project over there. Or else build
regular projects in non development
areas without any permission & then when they get occupied & the
third party interest has been created by flat holders living in such buildings,
again regularize them under the name of innocent citizens interest! No doubt
they are innocent as they don’t have enough money to buy a home at a builder
who builds with all due permissions on a legal title clear land, whose project
rates are obliviously costly than illegal one. But then
again two questions, first why legal structures are costlier than illegal
constructions & how the illegal constructions get build in first place when
there are so many controlling authorities around? Well second question
is for media & reporters to dig for, what we need to work out is on first
question i.e. making the system which will make available cheaper legal homes
to real needy ones. As infrastructure is the key
for any human settlement & naturally where things like water, roads, power
are available easily in comparison to other places, lands in such cities are
bound to get scarce, making those most sought after commodity. Obviously rates
of such lands goes sky rocketing & this has been happening in all Metros,
Cities & even Towns of the State as well Country.
All that Govt has to do is work on improving basic
infrastructure & that will balance the migration automatically but who
cares, that’s the problem! And for that we need to plan every inch of available
land in proper way & plan it fast. So that ample land will be available for
development reducing land cost which is the biggest factor in present costing
of a ready home. And then lay a system which will reduce time of obtaining hundreds
of permissions for a legal construction so more & more good people can come
in real estate & innocent citizen of this city would not have require to go
& buy their home with some illegal entity.
In way illegal structures is a black spot i.e. “kala
daag” in Hindi, on the face of entire real estate. As its some builder only who
in hest of making money plays with the life of thousands with help of the
system & builds illegal structures, selling it in cheaper rate & fooling
few people. But the entire industry gets held responsible & result is the
current image of builders. Anywhere anything goes wrong about city or issue of
illegal construction, everybody from media screams foul game by the builders!
Actually there are two types of builders, one who honestly tries to build their
product following every legal norm possible & another who puts every law
tied down at hanger along with buying the system & build his illegal homes.
Obviously it’s up to the customer whom they should buy from; agreed it’s easy
to say but for a real needy family where budgets are very tight they surrender
to the limitations of finance & go to the illegal guy for their home dream.
Here role of rulers come in picture which includes every political parties as it’s
their vote bank indirectly & then here the point of innocent citizen comes
forward & the limit of regularizing illegal constructions keep on getting
increased! Unfortunate that in all this its the common man who is victim of all the conspiracy of every segment related to the topic & its his future which hung at stake where as all concerned make money & fly off! This somewhere the common man also should think while buying his home & be a bit more aware though as I have mentioned above, limited budget & the need of owning a home makes mans common sense blind!
It’s high time the genuine people in
real estate also raise the voice about this cancer of illegal. And for that we
also need to analyze & act about our own working ways including curbing
profit margins & instead building
for just the greedy ones, with so called luxuries’ of life, try to build for
needy ones! Or else one day this cancer will eat up entire real estate
industry & somewhere we, our self will be responsible for ending our own
future!
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