Kalyan-Dombivli residents seek regularisation amid demolition drive

While demolition of unauthorised unoccupied and illegal buildings within the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation KDMC jurisdiction has begun following recent Bombay High Court directives KDMC has also started receiving requests in the past few days for regularising some occupied structuresmidday contacted the KDMC commissioner who is leading the demolition drive The Bombay High Court has set a threemonth deadline to complete the demolition of illegal structures while hearing a public interest litigation PIL filed by Sandeep Patil an architect from DombivliThe petitioner highlighted the rampant unauthorised construction in approximately 27 villages within Kalyan and Ambernath talukas alleging that developers bypass compliance requirements by using forged documentsmidday in its article titled lsquoCourt mandates linking MahaRERA with local bodies for buyersrsquo protectionrsquo highlighted the six directives from the Bombay High Court on the PILNotice issuedDr Indu Rani Jakhar commissioner KDMC said ldquoOut of 65 buildings mentioned in the PIL we have found out that only 58 buildings are within the jurisdiction of KDMC and remaining buildings are with MIDC and MMRDA jurisdictions Moreover out of 58 only 57 buildings have to be demolished by KDMC as construction work on one proposed building never startedDr Indu Rani Jakhar commissioner KDMCldquoSo far six eightdelete unoccupied structures under construction have been fully demolished and four others were partly demolished as it was partially occupied out of the remaining 47 58delete structures Some of the buildings are partly occupied and some are fully occupied so notices for vacating the buildings have been issued to themrdquoWhen asked who would foot the demolition expenses the commissioner said ldquoThe recovery of demolition charges is the responsibility of the developer and our system records the same which will also reflect on the property tax due on the said land Whenever the developer land owner approaches the corporation for approval of plans our records show the balance recovery due and only once he clears the dues we can process his requests for approval of plans etcrdquoRegularisation requestDr Jakhar added ldquoSome of the residents from these buildings approached the corporation requesting to regularise their structures and some approached stating that their building names were wrongfully designated in the unauthorised listrdquoldquoWe will study every request received and check all legal viabilities before we can decide on the samerdquo she saidOn RehabilitationldquoWe have to understand that the occupants who reside in unauthorised structures are not entitled to any rehabilitation programme from the state machinery and therefore proper due diligence is a must before making a choice of the property and putting in your life savings and availing bank loansrdquo said the commissionerModel code of conductThe commissioner added ldquoThe issue pertains to the time period prior to 2020 when the corporation had no role as these villages came under respective Gram Panchayats Zilla Parishad who were also the local town planning authorityrdquoldquoHowever with the two recent elections and subsequent code of conduct in place demolitions were on halt postMarch and no demolition can happen during monsoon as per state government norms Similarly with the state Assembly elections in November after monsoon and a fresh code of conduct in place we could not carry out demolition And now that we have a small window before the civic elections are announcedrdquo she saidWhat nextThe corporation would soon be submitting its report before the high court which would have status on demolished structures and those that could be regularised if at allAlso in the larger interest of flat buyers and to ensure that proper due diligence is done by them before investing in a property they must log on to the KDMC website httpskdmcgovin and they can look for the repository records of the particular project by merely inserting KDMC unique number which will soon be allocated to each project wherein all details about the project would be available on the tip of the finger she concluded