Padma Bhushan awardee and octogenarian Madhusudan Dhaky invested his lifetime savings into buying a flat. Little did he realise that the flat he bought was an illegal one. He is not alone to be duped, many property buyers fall prey to glib talks of unscrupulous real estate developers and agents. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) authorities, however, insist that the victims had bought homes without properly investigating the genuineness of the house-ownership documents.
UC Padia, deputy municipal commissioner, west zone, and estate and town development officer, said, “Ignorance of the law cannot be an excuse for buying an illegal unit. The buyers should go for proper document check of the residential and commercial structures they are investing into.”
An RTI query had recently revealed there are more than 20,000 cases of illegal construction in city.
“The city civic centres of AMC provide details of buildings to the interested parties on a nominal charge. The buyer can check whether the plans have been sanctioned or approved by the civic body,” said Padia.
The AMC has started the drive to demolish illegal structures in six municipal zones of the civic body. Padia said, “In the last six years, AMC has cleared four lakh square metre of land from encroachment and illegal construction.”
The AMC will be demolishing the unauthorised top two floors of People Plaza and Kalpana complex in Memnagar.
The AMC authorities emphasise it is the individual’s responsibility to check the legality of the property structures before buying it.
Of late, the civic body has become strict in implementing the rules related to ensuring basement of the building for parking space. This followed numerous instances of violation of the rule in which commercial structures came up in the basement area.
A senior AMC official said, “Most of these illegal constructions have taken place in old buildings which flouted the rules with impunity. The drive is to free basement from illegal commercial activities.”
