Patna, June 27: The vigilance wing of the civic body appears reluctant to take action against the 413 buildings in the city constructed in violation of approved building maps. Action against just one such structure has been taken in three months after the urban planning department of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) pointed out the anomalies. The rest stand tall in violation of the bylaws of Bihar Municipal Act, 2007.

A source in the civic body said 60 per cent of the illegal constructions were apartment complexes. In the only case that the civic body acted, a part of the apartment building was razed.

The source added that the lackadaisical attitude of the officials had caused the excessive delay in enforcing action against the violators. PMC has 51 certified architects who okay the maps. Construction of independent houses as well as apartment complexes in areas under the jurisdiction of PMC is guided by same building bylaws of the act.

Irked residents of the city claimed that the civic body had moved at a snail’s pace because many of the officials were hand-in-glove with the building mafia.

“The scale in which the building norms and regulations have been violated proves that the officials are hand-in-glove with the violators. As a result, no action is ever taken against any builder. Is this the good governance our chief minister keeps boasting of?” asked Shyam Sundar, a retired government employee.

The anger of the residents is justified as they are often at the receiving end of the violations.

To squeeze in more flats in less area, builders often exceed the floor area ratio (FAR), which should be between two and three. FAR is the ratio between the land size and the total floor area of a building.

“In most parts of the city, the permissible FAR is 2.5 but in some parts it is two or three. This means that the permissible heights of buildings are much lesser. However, builders violate the norms and construct higher buildings,” said a source in PMC.

The other common violation is that of the minimum setback area.

“In most of the cases, apartments are built in areas where roads are too narrow and the setback area is too little. The civic body often fails to punish the violators. As a result, such violations have become common. Lack of parking spaces, fire safety arrangements, proper arrangement for sewerage disposal are some of other violations but officials often overlook these issues while approving building plans or carrying out inspections. In the end, buyers of such buildings and their neighbours suffer,” the source added.

PMC officials, meanwhile, defended themselves and said that the department was not sitting on the files.

“These are procedural matters and will take some time. Part of one apartment, which was found violating the approved map, was demolished. Action will follow in other cases,” said Vijay Kumar, director, urban planning department, PMC.