MillenniumPost
Delhi

Mushrooming of illegal colonies plague Gurugram residents

Gurugram: The order by Punjab and Haryana high court has put the public authorities of Gurugram in a difficult spot.
Tasked with the removal of structures that have come up at the distance of 300 metres of Airforce ammunition depot, the district authorities are mulling how to move out various commercial and residential structures.
Despite being a high security area, over 4,000 structures were allowed to be built at a sensitive military zone.
While constructions within 900 metre of the Air Force station have been stayed, the issue of mushrooming illegal colonies continue to plague the city. There are complaints that people are cutting residential plots and selling it to people.
As rates of these plots are much lower than the market rates in Gurugram, these plots get enough buyers. A normal rate of the residential plot in Gurugram ranges from Rs 50,000 a square yard and beyond while these illegal plots are sold at Rs16,000 square yard.
While there are many illegal colonies in heart of the city, there many more townships in the outskirts of the city where the levels of scrutiny is lower.
The growth of illegal colonies in the city has resulted in the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) still not being able to meet its target of collecting property taxes. Highlighting a loss to public exchequer, officials of the Gurugram civic body are mulling of regularising these colonies provided they pay taxes.
Corrupt practices by public officials were recently highlighted after a raid by the Chief Minister's flying squad at the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) office.
It was found that certain officials were providing occupation certificates to builders, who were building illegal colonies.
After the incident, public agencies, including MCG, the Department of Town and Country Planning and HUDA have begun acting against errant builders.
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