The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Legal recourse threatened against CDS

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 13, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Legal recourse threatened against CDS

‘OTS will not solve problem unless erring builders are punished’

Builders should be blacklisted and prosecuted
Violations are done in complicity with officials

HYDERABAD: Members from various social and civic organisations on Saturday slammed the Compulsory Disclosure Scheme (CDS), brought in to regularise unauthorised building constructions in violation of the sanctioned plan and illegal layouts in the twin cities and elsewhere.

Heavy penalties

That the CDS was formulated without involving stakeholders levying heavy penalties on owners without punishing builders and errant officials, who were the offenders in the first place, they felt. Together, they decided to take legal recourse against CDS, if the State government did not scrap it.

“The claim of one-time settlement sounds hollow as CDS is not talking about pressing criminal charges on violators and officials. They dabbled with regularisation in 1998 and received 25,000 applications. Not one application has been processed till date. We have to take legal action against CDS,” said president of the Forum for Better Hyderabad M. Ved Kumar.

Several organisations, including the Forum for Better Hyderabad, United-Federation of Resident Welfare Associations (U-FERWAS), Campaign for Housing and Tenurial Rights (Chatri) and others expressed displeasure on the issue at a media conference.

“Penalising is not enough. Builders should be blacklisted, prosecuted in special fast track tribunals. Without doing all this, it’s impossible to set a deterrent. Owners of apartments have little choice but to depend on unscrupulous builders and blaming flat-owners is not rational,” said president for U-FERWAS Rao V.B.J. Chelikani.

The organisations argued that one-time settlement won’t solve the larger issue of violations of building rules. “Why are authorities taking the easy way out without facing realities? Like in the past, this attempt is bound to fail. They are even assuring penthouse regularisation, which is a common area meant for social functions,” said Vuppala Gopala Rao from U-FERWAS.

Imposing penalty will not dissuade builders from violating norms. It’s a universal fact that violations are done in complicity with officials, they felt. “It’s not practical to implement CDS in two to three months. ,” Mr. Chelikani said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh