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From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:13:48 +0530
Rejuvenation and degeneration cannot go together. Unregulated
construction in recent years has taken a heavy toll on the once
picturesque hill station, which has become a veritable concrete jungle.
It has not only put an unbearable strain on the civic infrastructure but
also ruined the aesthetic charm of hill station. Moreover, the municipal
corporation has been finding it difficult to provide even basic services
like water, sewerage etc. as most of the new buildings have encroached
upon the mandatory setbacks, essential for laying water and sewerage pipes.
Under the Town and Country Planning Act only 10 per cent deviation from
the approved building plans is allowed. The provision is made to take
care of minor deviations, which usually creep in while constructing
structures on hill slopes. However, under the latest retention policy
even totally unauthorized structures will be regularised and that too
floor-wise for which there is no provision under the law.
The retention policy allows 50 per cent deviation, including setbacks,
to enable regularisation of structures having up to five storeys. Not
only this, under this policy illegal structures will be regularised even
in restricted areas.
In fact the policy has been tailor-made to reward the rich and
influential. It is for the first time that the benefits of the retention
policy have been extended even to the colonisers. In many cases where a
person has built more than one unauthorised structure all of them will
be regularised.
cont'd....
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061125/real1.htm