Mayor Firhad Hakim on Saturday urged Kolkatans to inform the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) if a water body they knew about was not in the list of ponds available on the civic body’s website.
Hakim made the appeal after a Kolkatan told him in the weekly phone-in programme ‘Talk to Mayor’ that there was an attempt to fill a pond in his neighbourhood.
The mayor said no permission to erect a building would ever be granted on an area that was listed as a water body.
“We have a list of ponds in the KMC’s website as well as in our mobile app. I will appeal to all citizens and councillors to see if a pond in the neighbourhood was in the KMC’s list,” Hakim said.
Binod Kumar, the commissioner of the KMC, later told Metro that if someone did not find a water body on the list, they should intimate the environment and heritage department of the KMC. “People can inform the environment and heritage department if they do not find a pond in our list. They are also free to write to me,” Kumar said.
To access the list, one has to visit the home page of the KMC’s website. Click on the ‘KMC Departments’, third on the menu on the left hand side of the home page. Click on ‘Environment and Heritage Department’ from the list of departments. In the left hand menu, the penultimate item is ‘Ward wise ponds’. Click on it to see if the pond is listed.
In the KMC mobile app, there is a list of tanks where one can verify if the water body they know about is on the list.
An engineer of the KMC’s building department said construction of buildings was not allowed on a plot that is recorded as doba, beel or pukur — some of the classifications of water bodies. When someone applies with a draft plan, the KMC searches the records to find out the nature of the plot. Construction is allowed on plots classified as basstu. “For wards number 1 to 100, we refer to our own list of tanks or ponds, and to the records of our assessment department,” said the engineer.
For wards number 101 to 144 — which includes areas like Kasba, Jadavpur, Behala and Garden Reach — the records of the land and land reforms department of the state government are searched, he added.
But unholy methods like filling up a water body over time and then applying to the land reforms department for conversion of the nature of the plot is often done, said KMC officials.