Gurugram: The nexus between public authorities, land mafia and property dealers resulting in one of the most knowledgeable citizens getting fooled into buying a residential property in an illegal colony has come to fore. A judge in Punjab and Haryana high court was found to be having a residential plot in one of the illegal colonies where the district administration was planning to take action.
The probe is on to find out how the judge was made to invest in this property. The revelation has prompted the authorities to inform the citizens to not be fooled by the ads selling illegal plots in the city. Meanwhile, there are plans to act against more than 500 illegal colonies that have come up in and around Gurugram.
For long, mushrooming of illegal colonies continue to plague the city. There are complaints that people are cutting residential plots on vacant areas and selling them. As the rates of these plots are much lower than the market rates prevailing in Gurugram, these plots also 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 Rs 16,000 square yards.
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 property tax collection. Highlighting a loss in public exchequer, officials of the Gurugram civic body are mulling of regularising these colonies provided they pay the taxes. The corrupt practices of public officials were highlighted after a raid by the Chief Minister flying squad in the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) office. It was found that certain officials were providing occupation certificate to the builders who were building illegal colonies.
After the incident, the public agencies that involved MCG, Department of Town Country Planning (DTCP) and HUDA have begun to act against errant builders. Recently, notices were issued to the builders in Sushant Lok area who had flouted their surface area norms and had constructed a swimming pool in their builder floor.
Notices have also been sent to the illegal PG's that have mushroomed in the city. Besides land mafia, these colonies are also being used by the tanker mafia who build illegal borewells in these areas and then sell the water to the residents at exorbitant rates.