Cuttack, Jan. 2: The development authority is in a quandary over preventing landowners at Markat Nagar from using their houses for commercial purposes such as renting out for hostels.

The Cuttack Development Authority (CDA) has been receiving an increasing number of complaints about such violations.

However, the CDA's action has been limited only to initiating proceedings against the landowners under Section 91(1) and (2) of the Orissa Development Act, along with slapping notices to them. Though police are also requisitioned, the authority is making little headway in stopping the commercial use of residential buildings in cases, where the occupants are refusing to vacate.

The authority's predicament was recently exposed in the case of a ladies hostel at Sector 10 - in which a lawyer sought Orissa High Court's intervention by way of a public interest litigation.

Taking note of it, the court fixed January 7 as deadline for the CDA to take action and file a compliance report. The lawyer, who had filed the petition, alleged that 20 private hostels had been running out of residential houses in Sectors 10 and 11.

Besides violation of the statute, the running of the hostels was creating nuisance and inconvenience to local residents, the petition contended.

The CDA had developed Markat Nagar in the Bidanasi project area with various sectors as model residential zones. With continuous expansion and addition of more sectors, the satellite township has developed on the south-western fringes of Cuttack. The terms of use of the plots allotted under the scheme had been reportedly violated in hundreds of cases.

The authority's vice-chairman Pratap Das conceded that the authority was yet to ascertain the number of cases, in which residential houses at Markat Nagar were being used for commercial purposes, including hostels.

"We will shortly start a survey to identify such cases of violation of statute, including renting out of houses on residential plots for hostels, to take steps to prevent it," Das told The Telegraph.

The CDA officials expect that the state government's rule to seal establishments on the residential plots would make things easier for them to deal with such violations. "We expect the urban housing and development department to shortly come up with the modalities of enforcing the rule to seal illegal establishments," Das said.

In April last year, another PIL filed in the high court had alleged mushrooming of private hostels in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

The petitioner had sought a direction to the two civic bodies to impose fines or penalties on owners for converting their residential buildings into hostels without prior permission or registration.

On April 8 last year, the high court had directed the state government to provide details on the measures it had taken to regulate illegal running of private hostels in the twin cities. The case has since been languishing in court.

Official sources said that to regulate various private hostels in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, the police had, on February 4, 2013, forwarded to the home department the draft Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissionerate (Registration/Licencing of Private Residential Hostels of School/College/Technical Education institutions" for sanction and gazette notification. But, the regulation is yet to be notified.