Allottee pulls down walls of booths to encroach upon part of corridor

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, April 24

A glaring act of pulling down walls of two built-up booths in the Kitchlu Nagar Main Market (opposite BVM School) of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) to convert these into a single unit and encroach upon a part of the corridor, has come to light by an allottee with officials of the LIT again found closing its eyes to such blatant violation of terms and conditions of the allotment and making illegal change in the standard design.

In a complaint to the Deputy Commissioner, who is also the chairman of the LIT at present, Justice for Common People Welfare Society president Sumit Mangla and senior BJP leader Bikram Singh Sidhu have alleged that on Sunday, two booths, auctioned by the LIT about two months ago in the Kitchlu Nagar market, were partly demolished by the allottee in violation of the standard design with an intention of clubbing the booths into a single unit and encroaching upon part of the corridor lying in front of the booths.

They said the intimation of the violation and attempted encroachment was telephonically conveyed to the LIT Executive Officer and the officials concerned of the engineering branch. However, no action had apparently been taken in this regard as the construction work had been going on at the site.

Mangla and Sidhu said encroachment, unlawful extension and change in standard design, in addition to illegal change of land use (CLU) was rampant in most colonies and commercial centres developed by the LIT and specific complaints to this effect had already been lodged with the state government through the Department of Local Government as well as senior officials of the Trust without evoking any response.

“In most of the clusters of booths in different schemes of the LIT in the city, clubbing of two or more booths, construction of illegal basement without any approved site plan and encroachment by raising permanent structure on rooftops and in corridors, is a routine affair,” they asserted.

The complainants said the HC had issued specific orders to all urban local bodies as well as the Trust and Regional Area Development Authorities in respect of removal of encroachments. If time-bound action was not taken in the case, the matter would be taken up with the HC in the form of a contempt petition.

The LIT officials claimed that the demolition/construction work at the booths had been stopped this morning and action as per law would be taken against the allottee.