Illegal construction and its consequences

It is a well known fact – though spoken in hushed tones – that illegal construction in Mumbai goes on with the complete blessings of the political class and the underworld financiers. The need to post this blog has arisen with the Honorable Bombay High Court ordering the demolition of 17 illegal floors of a twenty four storey structure built at Kandivali. This building had the BMC approval for only seven floors but went on to construct seventeen additional floors. This raises a lot of questions which need to be answered and which I feel the Honorable High Court should also take into account for passing strictures against those responsible for whatever has transpired.

I am sure that the BMC, the ward officer, the executive engineer at the ward were fully aware that illegal construction activity was going on – why was it not stopped at the stage when the 8th floor was being constructed? Why did the concerned officials wait till seventeen more floors were built – I am sure they were not built in a day! The BMC staff keep visiting construction and building repair sites to check on water consumption so that water charges can be levied – if that is the case then why allow construction at all? The BMC will levy its taxes while illegal construction goes on and also collect graft for allowing the construction to happen. The BMC in the past has condoned illegal construction as a norm rather than as an exception – so in this instance why would buyers think that the construction would not get regularized? What has happened to the Hiranandani’s case at Powai – talks of levying a Rs. 2000 crore penalty for violation of land development agreement for 92.2 hectares in February 2009 was reduced to Rs. 218 crore – and that too has not been paid and collected!

All this begs the question – why should the buyers only be punished? – they have probably lost their lives savings! Don’t you think that the amount paid by the buyers to the builder should be recovered from the BMC officials if not the BMC for allowing the rampant illegal construction to continue under their benign blind eye for at least two years! The Municipal commissioner probably woke up because he may not have been offered adequate compensation for regularizing the illegal construction.

I am not saying that illegal construction should be regularized – but just look at the state of the city – everything gets regularized – with slums being regularized with the cut off date being pushed further down with each passing election – so that illegal vote banks can be nurtured. The BMC has officially admitted that there are 26 lakh bogus ration cards and they are still counting. That means 26 lakh bogus citizens demanding free houses in lieu of slums. Who pays? The honest tax payer of course – so does it pay to be honest in this country? Ask any right thinking citizen and you will probably hear a vociferous “No” for an answer. But like everything else in this country – the attitude remains “chalta hai” and life goes on as usual.