Prodded by mayor Firhad Hakim, the KMC buildings department has taken up a special demolition drive to pull down buildings that were illegally constructed during the festive period that lasted over a month. According to sources in the department, there has been a spurt in the number of illegal buildings in several boroughs during the festive days.
A KMC buildings department official said municipal commissioner Binod Kumar has empowered the civic body’s executive engineers to exercise a special power vested on him and asked them to supervise the demolition drive in their respective boroughs.
According to a KMC source, the department will need to concentrate on large parts of the city that have witnessed a surge in the number of unauthorized constructions. Some of these areas include neighbourhoods in and around Park Circus, Tiljala, Tangra, Burrabazar, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Beliaghata, Garden Reach, Ekbalpore, Behala, the Jadavpur-Tollygunge belt and areas off EM Bypass.
On Tuesday, a KMC team went to raze such an illegal building in the Beniapukur area. Though the civic demolition team could raze a small portion of the roof of a floor of a G+4 building in presence of cops, the team had to retreat due to demonstrations by some local residents, said a civic official.
“Two floors of this building have been constructed illegally. We will go back with a revised plan and demolish the illegal parts of the building,” said a KMC buildings department official.
According to a department official, the civic body had engaged special demolition teams in some boroughs where the number of illegal buildings was steadily going up. This deployment, according to the civic official, was necessary to take prompt action against the promoters of illegal buildings before the flats are occupied.
“Instead of depending on a central gang for taking up demolition drives across the city, we will need to deploy smaller gangs in specific boroughs to speed up the demolition process. After serving notice to the errant promoters, we don’t want to waste time on demolition as the promoters might get alert and try to thwart our drive,” said the official.
