LAW-FLOUTER: The building on Palm Avenue to which two floors are being added illegally. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

If you thought illegal buildings belonged to the T3 triangle of Topsia-Tiljala-Tangra, you might want to take a walk down Palm Avenue, towards chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s residence.

There’s no missing a two-storeyed building at 5F Palm Avenue, to which two floors are being added. Without the mandatory sanction from the building department of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), the house is being constructed for the past three months. What’s more, the building is being joined with the adjacent one at 5G Palm Avenue.

Residents in the “VVIP area” — the chief minister resides at 59 Palm Avenue — have shot off letters to Karaya police station repeatedly, but to no avail.

“We have applied to the CMC for the mandatory sanction... We have not got the papers as yet,” Amir Khan, promoter of the building, told Metro. “This is the norm here... Buildings are constructed without permission and then the CMC is paid to regularise them.”

Landlord Manik Majumdar was not available for comment. His wife Putul Majumdar said: “I do not know how the promoter has constructed the building without the mandatory permission. He has even joined the building with the adjacent one without our permission. This is illegal and I have asked them to demolish that portion.”

Residents of Palm Avenue blamed the the boom in illegal buildings on the growing nexus among civic officials, builders, local political strongmen and policemen.

When quizzed on Tuesday evening about the foul play at 5F-5G Palm Avenue, deputy commissioner (south) Ajay Kumar said: “I do not know about it... How is that possible? I will ask my officers to check.”

Surprise was what mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya also expressed when informed about the illegal buildings mushrooming in the chief minister’s neighbourhood.

“I will have to find out whether they have taken permission from the Corporation or not. In case if they have not, our officials will slap a stop-work notice immediately,” assured the mayor.

Residents of the area will only believe the crackdown when they see it. “We bought a flat here last year, thinking it was the safest locality in south Calcutta. What we find, instead, is promoter and goonda raj. These builders do not even leave enough room for ambulances and fire tenders to pass in an emergency,” complained a government employee living on Palm Avenue.

According to civic assessment inspectors, out of around six lakh buildings in the city, about three lakhs are illegal. “The problem is acute in pockets like Palm Avenue, where youths owing allegiance to both CPM and Trinamul Congress have turned small-time promoters and fuelled a realty boom,” admitted a civic official.