Police will be accountable for illegal filling of water bodies and so will be the engineers from the building department of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), mayor Firhad Hakim said on Wednesday.
At a meeting with Vineet Goyal, Kolkata’s police commissioner, Hakim said there have been several complaints of alleged lack of cooperation from the police on reports of water bodies being filled up. This has to stop and the police will be accountable for any act of illegal filling up of water bodies.
“The police commissioner has said that he would soon meet the officers-in-charge of police stations and brief them about their accountability in cases relating to illegal filling up of water bodies,” Hakim said after the meeting.
“An officer of the rank of joint police commissioner will be deputed to liaise with the KMC on complaints of filling up of water bodies.”
Illegal filling up of water bodies has been a recurrent complaint from a section of citizens across Kolkata over the past few months. They have informing Hakim about illegal filling up of water bodies during the programme “Talk to Mayor” almost every week.
Reacting to the complaints that have been pouring in, the KMC had recently decided that ponds under the civic body would have notice boards set up in front, declaring them as “water bodies” to stop a section of realtors from selling them off.
“It becomes difficult to evacuate residents after they have taken possession of a house that has come up on a pond that has been filled up illegally.The police will have to intervene before the construction begins and remain accountable thereafter,” Hakim said.
“Along with the police, officials of the building department will be held responsible,” he added.
The mayor said the executive engineer, sub-assistant and assistant engineers of the buildings department would be accountable if a building comes up on an illegally filled-up pond.
“If required, a departmental probe will be initiated against these officials of the building department,” Hakim said.
Senior officials said it has been decided that complaints of illegal construction on filled up water bodies will be taken up by the director general of the building department who will inform the KMC commissioner.
The commissioner in turn will take up the complaints with his counterpart in the Kolkata police.
“The police and the KMC will act jointly to stop all illegal constructions on water bodies that have been filled up,” Hakim said.
Earlier in January, the mayor had appealed to the citizens to inform KMC if a water body they knew about was not on the list of ponds that the civic body has uploaded on its website. Officials later said if someone did not find a water body on the list, they should intimate the environment and heritage department of the corporation.