Mayor Firhad Hakim on Saturday said police and junior officers of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation building department accept bribes to allow illegal construction while the blame falls on councillors and other officials of the KMC.
“Junior officers of the building department and police take money. The blame falls on councillors. How would councillors know which is a legal building and which is illegal?” Hakim said.
Hakim made these comments during the weekly phone-in programme — Talk to Mayor — after a Kolkatan complained about illegal construction. An angry Hakim also said that “the rate doubles” if there’s a complaint against a building that is an illegal construction.
Local Trinamul leaders are widely blamed for the proliferation of illegal constructions in their areas.
The police are accused of looking the other way.
On-going exhibition of photographs at Maya Art Space
Picture by Sanat Kr Sinha
Visitors to an exhibition of photographs at Maya Art Space in Rajdanga on Saturday. On display are pictures from two photography books by two IT professionals that were launched on Saturday — The Stars Are His Bones by Debiprasad Mukherjee and Damodar, A Riverscape by Bhaskar Mukherjee. The Stars Are His Bones is a collaboration of haiku and photographs, with text arranged by Gabriel Rosenstock. The book has about 170 photographs of human lives and emotions taken over a decade, said Debiprasad.
Damodar, A Riverscape tracks the river from source to end, with text by Apratim Kundu. Pareidolia, the exhibition, will be on till March 6, from 2pm to 8pm.