Kolkata, March 29 -- Following the recent incident where a demolition team of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) faced resistance from residents of an allegedly illegal building in the Garden Reach area, Mayor Firhad Hakim said that such complications have forced the civic body to look up to the courts for solution.

For KMC, illegal constructions have become a thorn in the flesh. In the wake of the recent under-construction building collapse in Garden Reach's Azhar Molla Bagan area which killed 12 persons living in the surrounding shanties, pressure has increased on KMC to act against illegal constructions in an expeditious manner.

On Thursday, a 40-member KMC team, along with the police, went to Garden Reach to demolish portions of an illegal building whose pillars have already developed cracks. However, demolition work came to a halt after residents resisted the KMC team, alleging that neither was there any prior intimation from civic body nor was the team demolishing the illegal portions. The owner of the property even alleged that his portions were being broken down since he is a BJP worker.

Such a situation has once again highlighted the complications which arise in taking action against illegal structures once residents have shifted in. Firhad Hakim told the media that even as demands are being raised that all illegal constructions be razed to the ground by KMC immediately, in reality, that is a difficult job to execute since many of them already have residents living inside. "In such cases, we need to depend on courts for a solution," he is learnt to have remarked.

A KMC official said that in most cases of illegal constructions, the promoters quickly shift in residents even before the building is completed.

It is done to prevent the civic body from carrying out immediate demolition and instead forces it to approach the court where cases go on for a long period of time. Even if KMC wins and gets the order for demolition, it has to first make arrangements for rehabilitation of all the residents of that building.

In a bid to act against illegal constructions before the promoters shift people into the building, the Mayor, early this year, requested the citizens to lodge complaints via the WhatsApp chatbot (8335999111). Further, borough level engineers have been asked to keep an eye out for such unauthorised constructions and bring it to the notice of the Building department without delay.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.