Govt’s new regularisation policy encouraging illegal constructions?

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, July 29

“It is like applying salt to the injury,” said TR Shastri, a resident of lower Barol area of Dharamsala while reacting to a letter received by area residents written by the Town and Country Planning Department.

Shastri and about 100 residents of lower Barol area that has recently been merged in Dharamsala municipal corporation have been running from pillar to post for the past more than two months to complain against the encroachment on the path leading to their colony.

They have alleged that the path to their colony having about hundred houses has been reduced from 10 feet to about 6 feet due to encroachment on it by a person raising construction just at the entrance of the colony.

The residents had complained to the Town and Country Planning Department, Municipal Corporation office, local SDM, local police, the Deputy Commissioner and even the local MLA and Minister for Urban Development Sudhir Sharma.

After their efforts, the department had written to Power and IPH Department against issuing power and water connections to the person raising illegal construction. “However, all our efforts seem to have been neutralized by the recent letter written to us by the Town and Country Planning Department,” said Ramesh Sharma, another resident of the area.

The TCP Department officials have written to colony residents that the person accused of encroaching the path has applied for regularization of his illegal structure under the new government policy as the HP Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016.

Shastri said the letter implies that the department was contemplating regularising the encroachment on public path and put owners of about 100 houses in trouble.

Asha Mehta, District and Town Planner Dharamsala, when contacted, admitted that the accused person had submitted a revised map demanding regularization of his building constructed against the approved map. “However, we have returned the map with some objections. Till July 29 all residents were entitled to get their deviations in original plans regularized as the new policy of the government”, she said.

When asked about the number of people who have applied for regularization of their structures under the new policy the district and town planner said that the data was still being collected.

The present case also illustrates perils that the new policy of state government for regularization of unauthorized structures would bring before the people of the state.

Under this policy, even the people who have encroached upon public paths and government lands would apply for regularization of their structures. If such structures are regularized the encroachers would be benefited and the people who have abided by the rules and regulations while raising constructions would be penalised. The sources said that repeated publicity to regularization policy being brought by the state government has in fact encouraged people to raise illegal structures. In the past two years many influential people in Dharamsala and McLeodganj have raised multi-storey illegal structures with a hope that these would be regularised.