Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday echoed the exasperation of common people about mushrooming of illegal structures and questioned the lack of any arrests despite such structures coming up.

No MP, MLA, police officer or government official should be spared if they are involved in any illegal construction, Mamata said at Nabanna on Monday during a meeting with heads of civic bodies, ministers, police officers and senior state government bureaucrats.

Mamata questioned why no one had been arrested though illegal structures
had come up in many places in urban pockets of Bengal.

“Illegal floors are being raised. Why are they not being arrested? Demolish one or two illegal buildings. Arrest one or two persons. No one should be spared, no MLA, MP, police officer, SDO, DM, no one,” Mamata said. “Why should we allow anything illegal?” she said.

“Some people have this habit that let us earn something as long as I am the inspector in charge (IC), let me save something as SDO (sub-divisional officer) or DM (district magistrate). Enough of these. These things have become very glaring now,”
she said.

Mamata said canals and ponds were being filled illegally. “Ponds are being filled up like these are their own properties. Buildings are coming up after filling water bodies,” she said.

“There is a contractor-promoter raj. Those who are involved in this should remember that the government will not spare anyone,” she said.

“Illegal construction is going on unabated. Tall buildings are coming up. When a building collapses, we are blamed. But there is no one to check when the buildings are constructed.”

Mamata also raised the issue of crumbling and old buildings in Calcutta. She said the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had issued notices to such buildings but the residents often refused to move out.

There should be some action against those who are making buildings on inadequate pillars, the chief minister said.

The site where an illegal under-construction building collapsed in Garden Reach's 1 Azhar Mollah Bagan in March, killing 13 people. File image

“Even next to Nabanna, illegal structures have come up. I must appreciate the officer because the person tried to stop it, but Rathin (former Howrah mayor Rathin Chakraborty) gave them permission. Buildings have come up all around,” she said.

Rathin Chakraborty, now in the BJP, did not answer calls from Metro on Monday evening.

“G+4 (ground floor and four storeys above that) buildings are not allowed within 1km of Nabanna, yet such buildings are coming up. These are being allowed to make money. Even in Bidhannagar and New Town, illegal structures are coming up. They are even getting electric connections,” she said.

“Shouldn’t there be acheck before giving electric connections?”

Mamata also spoke about a plot, measuring 29 cottahs, on Prince Anwar Shah Road in Golf Green that has been encroached on. The land, which does not have a boundary wall, belongs to the information and cultural affairs department.

Stalls selling food items, vegetables and lottery tickets and a Trinamool Congress office have come up on the plot. Many of the stalls have the address of the plot — 355 Prince Anwar Shah Road — written on them.

“It will not take me a second to throw out those who do not love people,” Mamata said.

The chief minister said that the state government would recognise refugee colonies and allow construction of buildings up to three storeys in the colonies. “But they should be told that they cannot build more than three storeys. If they do, we can even take back the patta (the deed of ownership of land),” she said.

The illegal structures in the Calcutta municipal area are too many to be counted. Government sources said the situation is much worse in urban areas near Calcutta as the municipalities there do not have adequate infrastructure to monitor or crack down on illegal buildings.

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has a better set-up in place and has demolished portions of illegal buildings. However, builders often reconstructed the illegal portions after they were pulled down by the civic body.

Thirteen people died after an illegal under-construction building collapsed in Garden Reach’s Azhar Mollah Bagan in March. The tragedy brought back focus on illegal buildings across the city.

State urban development minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim could not be contacted for comments.