The mushrooming of illegal buildings encroaching on government land in Ward 109 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) was discussed at a meeting of the state cabinet and the chief minister wants that all illegal occupants are removed, mayor Firhad Hakim said on Thursday evening.
This newspaper reported on Thursday that an internal survey by the state’s land and land reforms department and the South 24-Parganas administration had identified over 130 illegal buildings in the ward.
The survey was conducted over the past three months and the report was submitted recently.
“The issue of illegal buildings in Ward 109 was discussed by the state cabinet. The chief minister has told the land and land reforms department to take necessary action so all illegal occupants are removed,” Hakim told The Telegraph.
“On behalf of the KMC, we have started to identify these structures and serve them notices,” said Hakim, who is also the state urban development minister.
A KMC official, however, said the civic body had yet to receive any official communication from the state government on the survey report.
Sources in the South 24-Parganas district administration said the report found that these structures — mostly G+3 and G+4 — came up without any sanction from the authorities on government plots in areas such as Ajaynagar, Ganganagar, Dineshnagar, Mukundapur, Green Park, Nitai Nagar and Panchasayar in Ward 109 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
The ward is in the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency and is spread across 7.09sqkm.
Repeated calls to Ananya Banerjee, the Trinamul councillor of Ward 109, went unanswered on Thursday evening.
A councillor from the same borough said it was well known in the area that many buildings had come up illegally and on plots belonging to the government.
“Do not be surprised if the actual number is much more than 130,” said the councillor, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
“The practice started during the tenure of the Left Front and it has continued after Trinamul came to power. These are colony areas and people were allowed to settle there,” said the councillor.
“They do not have any patta (deed) for the land they occupy.”
A senior state government official who is aware of the survey said there were various categories of buildings but most of them were two- or three-storeyed. There are also many huts.
“These are mostly subaltern people. Their parents or grandparents came over from Bangladesh. Some others
have come from places 200-300km away from Kolkata in search of work. They have settled on these plots,” said the official.
“There are instances where builders have taken advantage of the situation and erected buildings. One of the objectives of the survey was to recognise the right of these people to the land since they had been living there for decades,” said the official.
The findings of the survey have set off alarm bells in the wake of the collapse of an under-construction building in Garden Reach that killed at least 10 people.
According to sources, the land and land reforms department had ordered the survey after complaints that illegal structures had come up on government plots in Wards 107, 108 and 109 of the KMC.
“It has come to our notice that the problem of illegal buildings on government land has taken a critical shape in Ward 109,” said a state government official.
