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IMC offers full amnesty
LIKE THE national capital, Indore is plagued with widespread commercial activity in designated residential areas. There, however, the similarity ends.
LIKE THE national capital, Indore is plagued with widespread commercial activity in designated residential areas. There, however, the similarity ends.
Whereas civic bosses in Delhi have taken the hammer to commercial establishments in residential localities, unleashing a maelstrom of protests, the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has decided to engage rather than confront violators.
In a move that could serve as an example to civic bodies elsewhere, the Corporation has chalked out a proposal for a general amnesty for land use violators in return for a one-time payment.
The proposal, currently awaiting government approval, would not only legalise commercial structures housed in residential areas with a single stroke of the pen but also net the cash-starved IMC crores of rupees.
‘‘Under the proposal commercial structures operating from residential localities would be legalised upon deposition of a certain sum which would be a percentage of the Collector’s rate for the area,” revealed Municipal Commissioner Vinod Sharma, who believes the move is preferable to sealing.
“Unlike sealing, which could ruin hundreds of businesses with no gain to the concerned civic body, the IMC proposal would not only help legitimise commercial establishments in residential neighbourhoods but also earn us much needed revenue,” he pointed out.
This, he added, was why the IMC had chalked out the amnesty proposal instead of “initiating sealing action as has been done in other parts of the State”, a reference to Bhopal Municipal Corporation which recently slapped notices on 150 residents of the posh Arera Colony whose residential plots were being used for commercial purposes.
But what of the legal groundwork? After all a similar amnesty for illegal additions to built-up structures under the ‘compounding’ scheme in four cities - Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur - came to grief as the necessary laws had not been amended.
“If the proposal is cleared we will ensure that the required legal framework is in place before announcing the amnesty,” asserted the Municipal Commissioner.
If cleared, the proposal would legalise hundreds of shops, showrooms etc in Palasia, MG Road, Geeta Bhavan and many other areas that started life as residential localities but shed their original avatar to emerge as commercial hubs, as the City’s rapid growth led to a scarcity of real estate.
saeedkhan@hindustantimes.com
