Bombay HC raps Pune civic body for giving permissions to builders not providing necessary infrastructure
The division bench of the Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Girish Kulkarni was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Amol Balwadkar who has recently been elected as a corporator from the city.
The Bombay High Court today came down heavily on the Pune Municipal Corporation for giving permissions to builders to construct buildings without creating the necessary infrastructure. The division bench of the Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Girish Kulkarni was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Amol Balwadkar who has recently been elected as a corporator from the city.
The issue that had been raised by Balwadkar pertained to Baner and Balewadi areas of Pune where indiscriminate construction has been happening in the recent time. Balwadkar's lawyer Anurag Jain had contended that without roads, water supply, occupation certificates are also given while people take heavy home loans to get a roof over their head only to realise later that they have to pay heavy society charge as the buildings do not have water supply. "Heavy expenditure is borne by most of the building societies to get water tankers," Jain told the bench.
Justice Kulkarni noting this issue said, "You (corporation) are mainly interested in indiscriminate revenue. Before you have skyscrapers, why can't you get basic infrastructure in place?"
Chief Justice Chellur asked, "If you collect the money from the builders, by the time they finish construction why can't you provide water pipelines?"
The lawyer representing the municipal corporation said that in the last two years, permission for construction of 458 buildings was given and the corporation did provide most of the buildings with water supply.
However the court said, "This cannot be the nature of development. Don't make it look like a concrete jungle. This just shows you are only concerned about builders and not the people living in those buildings."
The court has asked both the petitioner as well as the Pune Municipal Corporation to provide details of each building, how many people stay in those buildings and if water is supplied through pipelines or if the societies have to put in the services of tankers as well.
The court also said that this is not an issue only pertaining to Pune, but even in Thane, Ghodbundar and many areas situation was the same where builders have completed construction and people have settled in those buildings only to know that there is no water supply.
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