The mayor and the deputy mayor of Kolkata are apparently not on the same page over accountability for the mushrooming of illegal buildings.
Deputy mayor Atin Ghosh said on Tuesday councillors could not shrug off the responsibility if illegal buildings come up in their wards.
His words were in sharp contrast to what mayor Firhad Hakim said after an illegal five-storey under-construction building caved in on Sunday and killed at least 10 people.
Hakim has repeatedly defended civic councillors against the charge that no illegal building can come up without their knowledge and, possibly, support.
Ghosh, a councillor from north Kolkata’s Hatibagan area, said that “sitting in a chair”, he could not disown responsibility for something that has happened in front of his eyes.
“There is a moral responsibility that I cannot deny,” he said.
Ghosh said that from his experience as a councillor, he had seen that whenever a new building came up in a ward, someone would report it to the councillor.
“I can then call engineers and enquire whether the structure that is coming up is legal or illegal. A councillor cannot say he did not know (that an illegal structure is coming up in his or her ward),” Ghosh said.
A common allegation is that the councillor’s men come whenever a new construction starts, but the purpose is to demand “protection money”.
The opposing views of the mayor and his deputy became a talking point among many senior KMC employees on Tuesday.
“The executive of the KMC, the political executive of the KMC cannot shrug off its responsibility,” Ghosh said.
Mayor Hakim, also the state’s municipal affairs and urban development minister, seemed to suggest the opposite on Tuesday.
“I am a councillor from Chetla. It is not possible for me to know what is happening in every corner of Chetla. There are some places where such illegal constructions are reported, while there are others where this has become an accepted thing,” he said.
On Monday, Hakim had said: “During the CPM tenure, people were forced into unauthorised construction because the administration used to take a very long time to process applications. But now we have made the process very smooth and simple. But unfortunately, even after that, some promoters are indulging in such activities.”
On Tuesday, Hakim was asked whether Shams Iqbal, Trinamul Congress councillor of the ward in Garden Reach that includes the neighbourhood where the building that collapsed was coming up, should take the blame for what was happening in his backyard.
The mayor replied: “No, why would the councillor be blamed? How is the councillor supposed to know what is happening in the lanes and bylanes? That is the job of the officials (he did not specify which officials). The administration will have to be more strict. Action will be taken.”
Earlier, too, Hakim had said that civic engineers, and not councillors, were supposed to know whether any illegal building was coming up in a ward.