Shimla Deputy Mayor backs house owners

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, February 19

As the new house regularisation policy has evoked a poor response from house owners across the state, Deputy Mayor Tikender Panwar today shot off a letter to Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, demanding that houses, constructed before 1994 in the merged areas and before 1979 in other town and country planning (TCP) areas, should be regularised without formal codal procedures.

Supporting the stand taken by the house owners, who have resented the huge compounding fee and structural safety certificate and other ambiguities in the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act, Panwar said, “The house owners in the merged areas should be asked to submit a plain application, showing details about their properties for regularisation on “as it is and where it is” basis.”

But the sad part of the new TCP policy is that the government had not brought out the policy in a true spirit of “one-time settlement” as people were promised earlier, Panwar said.

“The amended TCP Act is ambiguous. It has negated the true spirit of regularising houses built by the people through their hard-earned money,” he added. Because of this, the TCP policy has evoked a poor response. “They do not deserve any special mercy on the part of the state, but a clear cut right to the get basic civic amenities like water and electricity,” he added.

Panwar said a basic flaw in the TCP Act is the cut-off date for considering these houses for regularisation. The amended Act mentioned that the houses constructed before 1979 (TCP Act) and HP Municipal Corporation Act 1994 be regularised.

“Secondly, a new clause regarding the structural stability has created a chaos among people as most of the engineers find it difficult to provide structural certificates for the houses, which were not constructed under their supervision,” he added.

President of the Upnagriya Jan Kalyan Samiti Chanderpaul Mehta and secretary Govind Chattaranta said the government should abide by its promise of charging of no compounding fees from the house owners and should regularise the houses in the merged areas as a part of “one-time settlement policy”.

“Most house owners resent the hefty charges on compounding and structural certificate and will decide future course of action on February 21 here,” they added.