Refusal to vacate a crumbling building or sitting on a notice from the civic body to repair dilapidated portions could land the owners and occupiers of the structure behind bars if a proposal of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation gets the state government’s nod.
The maximum punishment being proposed in the amendment to the CMC Act is imprisonment for five years, said civic officials on Thursday.
The civic body is all set to pass the proposal, which also includes imposing penalty between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh, in its monthly meeting of councillors on Friday.
Since the Trinamul Congress-run board is bringing the proposal and the party enjoys absolute majority in the civic body, the proposal is likely to get through without any obstacle.
The proposal also includes imposing fine, between Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000, if the owners or occupiers did not put up a board outside the building informing people that it was a “dangerous” structure despite the Calcutta Municipal Corporation declaring it as one.
A CMC official said they had proposed to make occupiers of dilapidated buildings responsible because often the civic authorities were faced with a problem of not finding the actual owner against whom an action can be taken.
“Often the ownerships of very old buildings are disputed and is almost impossible to track them. Also in many cases, we find that owners of these old buildings have no power over tenants who are staying for years. The meagre rent they get from tenants is a reason they lose interest and stop coming to the building. If tenants or occupiers are also made responsible then remedial action would be implemented,” he said.
However, the CMC would not be able to impose the fine or take the offenders to court immediately after the proposal gets passed in the civic body on Friday, said a senior official.
The proposal would be then sent to the state government that would then be placed in the Assembly.
The proposal would become law only after they are passed in the Assembly, said the official.
“The CMC Act had the provision to impose fine but the amount was a meagre Rs 1,000. There was no provision for imprisonment in the Act,” said the official. “We have decided to increase the fine amount and also include the provision for imprisonment,” he said.
Sources in the CMC said that the proposal for amendment became necessary as tenants, and sometimes owners, of dilapidated, crumbling buildings refused to vacate the structures despite civic engineers and officials serving notice to them to leave the buildings.
The CMC issues notice to vacate when engineers find after inspecting a structure that it was beyond the scope of repair and living inside the structure posed a risk to the limbs and lives of its residents.
Over the years, several people have died when dilapidated buildings collapsed.
The CMC had earlier created options for owners to pull down old buildings and erect new ones in their place. The civic body is offering extra construction in such buildings, something that it would not allow in any other building being built in an equivalent size of plot.
“Our aim is to force people to leave crumbling structures or undertake repairs. When other methods to convince tenants or owners fail, we would have to impose the fine,” said an official.
The imprisonment, however, can be ordered only by a magistrate and the state government would decide which court would be given the power to order imprisonment in such cases, said an official.
