Mayor Firhad Hakim has instructed civic officials to file FIRs against builders who continue with their illegal constructions despite orders not to do so.
He has also asked the municipal commissioner to follow up these cases with the Kolkata police commissioner.
“Draw up FIRs in such cases, pass them on to the commissioner who would then follow it up with the police commissioner,” Hakim said during a “Talk to Mayor” session while responding to a complaint of illegal construction.
The caller, a resident of Maharshi Devendra Road in north Kolkata , alleged that an illegal construction was coming up near her house and sought the mayor’s intervention.
Several others voiced their grievances about illegal construction from across the city, reflecting a tendency among a section of builders to defy law-enforcing authorities while rushing through construction.
A resident from South Purbachal Road in Haltu alleged that a builder in Ward 106 was continuing with construction even after a “stop order” was served on him.
A Topsia resident complained that a six-storey building was coming up illegally on a plot opposite Peace World, a civic body-run mortuary.
Senior officers said areas such as Behala, Joka, Topsia, Tiljala, Garia, Jadavpur-Santoshpur belt, Garden Reach, Metiabruz, Kidderpore and areas off EM Bypass such as Madurdaha, Mukundapur, Kasba, and Garfa, have been registering many complaints of illegal construction.
Officers have observed a growing tendency among builders to rush through the project so that buyers can move in fast, making it difficult to pull down the unauthorised structure.
“Any construction work carried out without a valid sanction plan is liable to demolition,” said a senior official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s building department. “After detecting such an illegal construction, a stop work notice is served. Thereafter the case is taken up under Section 400 (I) or 400 (8) of KMC Act 1980.”
Hakim had courted controversy in February when he claimed that councillors were unaware of illegal construction in their respective wards and that it was the duty of the civic body’s building department and the police to have all the information. Hakim had said some unscrupulous elements in the CMC’s building department and the police allowed illegal construction in exchange of money.
“We are trying our best to stop these activities by initiating severe actions against such builders,” he said on Saturday.