College Road building loses one of its floors

NASHIK: The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Monday razed one of the three unauthorised floors of a building on College Road. The owner gave an undertaking to the civic body that he would demolish the remaining two floors on his own.
The 12-year-old building in front of BYK College had four floors initially, while three floors having 12 flats were constructed later.
As part of its anti-encroachment drive, the civic body has started demolishing unauthorised structures from May 20. The NMC found 750 unauthorised structures in the city and started demolishing 68 of them before issuing notices to the owners.
On May 20, as many as 18 illegal constructions were demolished at Hotel Krishna in Space Cosmos Tower, Radhashree Apartments in Rajivnagar, Israj Motors/Power Auto Cooling in Pethenagar and Jainarayan Apartment in Bhabhanagar.
On Monday, the second day of the drive, the civic body's anti-encroachment department demolished one floor of Sanmitra Apartment belonging to Sahebrao Kadam.
"The building has four floors but three were constructed illegally. We demolished one of the floors. The civic body was about to demolish all the three floors, but the owner gave us an undertaking that he would demolish the remaining two on his own," said R M Bahiram, deputy municipal commissioner (encroachment).
He said they had brought some machinery on rent for this task as they did not have enough equipment.
An NMC official said, "We had buildings like this in mind when we approached the general body seeking approval for appointing an agency to demolish unauthorised structures. It becomes very difficult for us to demolish structures of certain buildings. We had to create crater on the floors as we don't have the machinery to demolish such structures. The owner of this building had applied for increased floor space index to the NMC. But for doing so, even the margin space should increase. In this case, the margin space could not be increased."
Hotels next on municipal authority's radar
After cracking down on unauthorised structures, the NMC is now eyeing hotels and restaurants having illegal structures. The NMC has sent notices to the hotels in the last two days asking the owners to remove structures in the parking spaces on their own.
"Our action against illegal constructions will continue unabated. We have also issued notices to eateries to remove unauthorised constructions on their own. Otherwise, the NMC will not only demolish the structures but also go ahead and recommend various departments to revoke their licences," said municipal commissioner Praveen Gedam.
The NMC will soon ask the police commissioner and the Food Drug Administration to cancel licences of the hotels/restuarants concerned. The hotel/restaurant owner has to show the parking space as well as present that the vehicles can be parked. Generally, an eatery owner shows the parking space and later uses it as part of the restaurant, said an NMC officer.
"During the demolition drive on Gangapur Road last year, we observed that the razed structures cropped up again. Hence, we have taken the decision to revoking the licences," the officer added.