The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has started providing details about visits by its sub-assistant engineers to identify unauthorised constructions in the city on its website.
People too can see the daily reports filed by the engineers.
A senior official of the civic body said the objectives behind uploading the reports were multiple: it would deter people from doing unauthorised construction out of a fear of public knowledge and it would deter others who will know that the civic body is now vigilant and would crack down on illegal constructions.
The home page of KMC’s website has the menu on its left. One of the items here is Building Work Diary Report.
A click on this item will take a user to another page where one has to select the borough and ward number to pin down on the list from that ward.
More specific information like street name and assessee will help a user get information about the exact building on which they seek information.
Starting April 1, all sub-assistant engineers of KMC’s building department were asked to upload pictures and provide information about any illegal construction on a mobile app that has been created.
“They are uploading pictures of any new construction with remarks whether the construction is going ahead as per approved plan or if it was being built illegally,” said a KMC official.
Sub-assistant engineers (SAE) are supposed to do rounds of a ward under their jurisdiction and identify illegal constructions.
Once an engineer logs in to the app, it will identify the location where he is visiting.
Sources said the app would help monitor if the engineers were going around in
their wards to identify illegal constructions.
Uploading the pictures on the app will also ensure that it is electronically stored and can be accessed later.
The same report is being uploaded on the website.
“All our ward sub-assistant engineers from the building department are following a daily roster of field visits and uploading their findings,” said an official.
“The information will be slowly made available to our employees from departments like assessment, licence and solid-liquid waste management, who in turn will have to upload any suspicious construction activity for our building department. Police will also be able to access the app soon.”
The decision to use the mobile application comes in the wake of the collapse of an under-construction building in Garden Reach that killed 13 people.
A section of engineers, however, questioned whether introducing a mobile application would solve the problem.
They said there were huge vacancies in the posts of sub-assistant engineers and unless the vacancies were filled, it would be difficult for them to identify all unauthorised construction.
