The commissioner of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has written to the commissioner of the city police seeking his “help” to resume fortnightly meetings between borough engineers and the respective divisional deputy commissioners of police to share updates on illegal structures.
Civic officials said such fortnighly meetings had continued for almost a decade stopped before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.
The letter from KMC commissioner Dhaval Jain to Vineet Goyal, Kolkata’s police chief, says: “In a meeting chaired by Hon’ble Mayor on 22.03.2024 in presence of Kolkata Police Nodal Officer, the topic of coordination of KMC with KP was discussed.”
“I, hereby, request you to kindly help in restarting the practice of fortnightly DCP level meetings where Borough representatives will be present to share information and enhance cooperation in counter-measures against illegal construction,” the letter
says.
The Telegraph sent a WhatsApp message to Goyal seeking his reaction. There was no response from him till late on Sunday evening.
KMC officials said the officers in charge of the police stations in a division would attend the meetings, along with the deputy commissioner of police of that division.
“Since engineers and officials from the environment department of the KMC also used to attend the meetings, illegal filling of ponds, too, would come up for discussion,” a senior official said.
He could not say why the meetings stopped.
Residents of Garden Reach have alleged that the five-storey under-construction building that collapsed around midnight on March 17, killing 12 people, was coming up on a plot where a water body had been filled illegally.
An inquiry committee formed by the KMC to find out the cause of the building’s collapse has the mandate to determine the nature of the plot — whether it was a water body or not.
KMC officials said an aerial survey of Kolkata was conducted by the National Remote Sensing Agency in 2003. “The map that was prepared after the survey is available with the KMC. The map will show whether the plot was originally a water body or not,” an official said.
The land and land reforms department of the state government will be asked to provide information about the plot.