Mayor Firhad Hakim said on Tuesday that over 700 buildings with deviations from their original plans — up to 1,000 sq ft — were regularised in the past few years, responding to claims that unauthorised constructions had spread across the city.
Hakim added that ,portions of 850 illegal buildings were demolished in the past couple of years.
The mayor provided the figures while speaking at the budget discussions of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC). The two-day discussions ended with Hakim’s reply on Tuesday.
“We regularised 480 buildings that had deviations up to 500 sq ft,” Hakim said.
The term regularisation is used for structures whose illegal portions were made legal after payment of a penalty.
KMC sources said self-owned residential buildings that deviated from the approved plan are often regularised against the payment of a penalty if the deviations are small in nature and do not threaten the structural stability of the building.
“We also regularised 150 buildings that had deviations between 500 and 750sqft, and 80 buildings where the deviations were between 750 and 1000sqft,” Hakim said.
The mayor did not mention how many buildings with deviations of over 1000sqft had been regularised during this period.
KMC sources said multiple structures with major deviations had been regularised. Many allege that the number of illegal constructions has increased manifold in recent years.
Illegal construction is a challenge for the civic body, an official said.
Almost all episodes of Talk to Mayor, a weekly phone-in programme where Calcuttans can talk to their mayor directly, have complaints related to illegal construction.
Many of the complainants allege that illegal constructions continue even after the KMC pulls down portions of the structure.
Speaking before Hakim, BJP’s Sajal Ghosh, the councillor from Ward 50, accused the civic body of turning a blind eye to illegal constructions.
Ghosh also highlighted how hawkers had eaten up large stretches of the city’s pavements. He mentioned the condition of New Market.
“You are saying that this KMC board will not act against poor hawkers. It is good. But what about the traders of New Market? They pay tax to the KMC. Their businesses are suffering because hawkers have taken up all the space surrounding New Market,” Ghosh said.
“The traders have employees in their stores. Each of the employees has mouths to
feed. What about them?”
Ghosh also asked the ruling Trinamool Congress members not to stall the progress of Metro Railway projects in the city. “I urge you all to let the work proceed,” he said.
Earlier in the discussions, the mayoral council member in charge of solid waste
management, Debabrata Majumdar, admitted that segregation of waste at source
had not achieved desired levels. “We have not been able to reach the level we had expected. I urge all councillors to look into this aspect. Please see that mixed waste is not collected or that waste is not mixed before it is handed over to the morning waste collector,” he said.