E-Paper
Sealing?or concealing?
LUCKNOW DEVELOPMENT Authority?s much-touted drive against illegal structures seems to have more to do with concealing rather than sealing. How else would its officials explain the fact that the dozens of unauthorised buildings, once sealed by them, are today either on the verge of completion or complete.
LUCKNOW DEVELOPMENT Authority’s much-touted drive against illegal structures seems to have more to do with concealing rather than sealing. How else would its officials explain the fact that the dozens of unauthorised buildings, once sealed by them, are today either on the verge of completion or complete.
Nothing illustrates this fraud being wreaked by the department’s enforcement section officials better than the manner in which seals of three allegedly unauthorised constructions were lifted. Interestingly, while the officials make it a point to bring it to the notice of the media every time they seal an illegal structure, orders revoking their own decisions in such matters are kept a closely guarded secret for obvious reasons.
While a group housing project near HAL was in the eye of the storm precisely for this reason, two more recent examples are from Mahanagar. On September 11, LDA’s enforcement squad led by executive engineer RK Jaiswal sealed two buildings in sector B reportedly on the complaint of localities residents as the owners of both were allegedly undertaking commercial activity from residential premises. A Press communiqué was promptly issued to the media stating that house number C/1038-1039 and C/1039-1040 were sealed on the orders of the LDA Vice Chairman as while the former comprised a motor-workshop, a bank was being operated from the latter’s premises.
The sealing exercise was taken up as a follow up action after the owners failed to respond to the show cause notices issued to them by the LDA on July 17.
But barely two days after it sealed the so-called unauthorised structures, the bosses in LDA withdrew their directive on September 13 and ordered opening of the sealed premises.
LDA’s explanation: the owners of both the buildings had stated on oath that they would not undertake any commercial activity in their respective premises and would voluntarily demolish the illegal portion within a month!
Similar is the fate of around 50 such demolition orders in the past two months against ‘unauthorised structures’ that were issued by the authority and are gathering dust.
