Bhubaneswar, Sept. 25: For an average citizen, building a house without the approval of the development authority is not easy. But for the police, it appears, the rules are different.

A multi-storey building complex of the Odisha Police Housing and Welfare Corporation (OPHWC) near Rasulgarh Square on NH-5 has been under construction for the past five years, but the authorities had not applied for plan approval from the development authority until now.

A development authority official said: “Had the same thing been done by the owner of a private building, we would certainly have issued a demolition notice.”

Mohanty said the Rasulgarh property belonged to the police housing corporation and it was older than the commisionerate building. However, permission had not been sought from the development authority in the past.

(From top) The under construction building of Odisha Police Housing and Welfare Corporation near Rasulgarh Square, the Commissionerate Police building, and the proposed headquarters of the ASI at Samnatarapur. Pictures by Ashwinee Pati

VIOLATE AND PAY UP

“We have submitted necessary documents, such fire safety clearance, and requested the development authority to consider it in their development plan and building plan meeting. We are also ready to deposit the compounding fees, if necessary, to get the approval,” he said.

If the plan violation is less than 10 per cent of the approved area, the Odisha Development Authority Act, 1982, stipulates that it can be allowed with payment of a fine or compounding fee. Violation of more than 10 per cent will be decided during the development plan and building plan meeting.

In the case of the Rasulgarh police housing project, the development authority is in a fix. They are wondering how to give permission for the multi-storey structure, which is very close to the NH-5. The setback (distance of the building wall from the boundary) is also not enough for fire-fighting measures.

Vice-chairman of the development authority Vishal Kumar Dev said the OPHWC authorities had applied for the plan approval of their Rasulgarh building.

“We will study their request and take an appropriate decision after going through the papers,” he said.

The police administrators did not take permission of the chief architect of the state government under the public works department in 2009 for the plan approval of their headquarters building on Bidyut Marg.

The chief architect of the state government is the designated authority to give plan approval for all government buildings and multi-storey structures.

In case of government buildings, many are still being approved by the chief architect.

This is not the first act of violation by the cops.

Incidentally, the sprawling Commissionerate Building, the twin city police headquarters, was also built without the development authority’s nod.

The construction of the police headquarters was executed by OPHWC as well. The construction, which began in 2009, took two years to be completed. However, only after its inauguration in April 2011 did the cops approach the development authority for plan approval.

OPHWC chairman and managing director Satyajit Mohanty said: “In case of the police headquarters building, we were only the executing agency and contractor. We did our job just as a contractor would. The plan approval should have been taken by the headquarters authorities before giving us the job.”

Chief engineer of the housing corporation P.K. Sahoo said the police headquarters building was built with a plan approval of their own structural engineer and empanelled architect. “As it was a government structure, approval was not sought from the development authority, but in 2011, the approval was obtained after paying a fine of Rs 7 lakh,” he said.

Four circulars had been issued from the office of the chief secretary to all departments concerned to submit building plan proposals to the development authority to ensure better planning in the Bhubaneswar Development Plan Area.

In June, the development authority had slapped a fine of Rs 6.91 lakh on the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for violating plan approval norms.

ASI is building its Bhubaneswar circle office at Samantarapur.

“We had applied for approval in 2009, but as there was no communication, the construction agency thought that the approval had been granted. The development authority has asked us to pay the fine and we will do so,” said ASI superintending archaeologist of Bhubaneswar circle Bhuvan Vikrama.